Film Forum

U.S., 1922
Directed by E. Mason Hopper
Written by Montague Glass
Based on stories by Anzia Yezierska
Starring Helen Ferguson, E. Alyn Warren
Approx. 70 min. 16mm. 

“Based on the short stories of Anzia Yezierska, the first writer to bring stories of American Jewish women to a mainstream audience, HUNGRY HEARTS focuses on the members of the Levin family who emigrate from Eastern Europe to New York City's Lower East Side. Abraham, the pious father learned in religion but uninterested in business, has difficulty making a living and adjusting to life in America. The daughter Sara scrubs floors in the tenement in order to earn money and ‘become a somebody.’ The mother Hannah, a noble matriarch, scrimps and saves to paint her dingy kitchen white only to have her landlord raise the rent because of the improvements. This early silent film was produced in a Hollywood studio but the street scenes were shot on location on the Lower East Side in New York City. This bittersweet classic captures the hopes and hardships of Jewish immigrants in the New World.” – National Center for Jewish Film

16mm print courtesy National Center for Jewish Film.

Presented with support from The Ada Katz Fund for Literature in Film

Reviews

“A landmark document: the industry’s first serious depiction of the Jewish-immigrant experience.”
– Tablet Magazine

“HUNGRY HEARTS may be more of an entertainment than a social film, but its slice-of-life approach gives it unusual value.”
– Kevin Brownlow, Behind the Mask of Innocence

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