Film Forum

(1920, Frank Borzage) Borzage’s masterful handling of the Fannie Hurst story about a Yiddishe Mama who pushes her son to become a great violinist. Lester Friedman in Hollywood’s Image of the Jew calls it the “quintessential ghetto film…the Lower East Side as an exalted state of mind.” 35mm print courtesy UCLA Film and Television Archive. Approx. 60 min.

Reviews

“Borzage’s first significant film.”
– Gillian Hartnoll

“The film possesses the basic elements of a Yiddish narrative: ‘pathos,’ ‘humor,’ and ‘humanity.’ In addition to revitalizing Ghetto Films, Humoresque adds two new themes– ‘making it’ in America and the power of mother love. With the release of Humoresque, the Long-Suffering Mother makers her first important appearance.”
- Patricia Erens, The Jew in American Cinema

“…broad street views and little intimate glimpses, the people of the story, their customs, habits, ways of living and variety of character and appearance, are brought to the screen, definitely, genuinely, memorably. Within a short time the spectator feels himself carried into the life of which the persons in the play are an integral part. The power of the motion picture thus to create atmosphere, more vividly, more convincingly, than is possible in written words, except those of rare masters, is not often so emphatically and delightfully demonstrated.”
– The New York Times (May 31, 1920)