Slideshow
HUMORESQUE
♪ Live piano accompaniment by Steve Sterner ♪
U.S., 1920
Directed by Frank Borzage
Based on the 1919 story by Fannie Hurst
Starring Gaston Glass, Vera Gordon, Alma Rubens, Dore Davidson
Approx. 60 min. 35mm.
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 preservation print courtesy of the UCLA Film & Television Archive.
Presented with support from The Ada Katz Fund for Literature in Film
Reviews
“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 motherly love. With the release of HUMORESQUE, the Long-Suffering Mother makes her first important appearance.”
– Patricia Erens, The Jew in American Cinema