RESTORED BY NCJF

This delightful comedy opens as Morris Brown, a New Yorker better acquainted with his checkbook than his prayerbook, returns to Galicia with his very American daughter, Mollie (Molly Picon) for a family wedding. The bride, daughter of his traditionally observant brother, and Mollie, whose exuberant antics fill the film, could not be more different. But Mollie unexpectedly meets her match, an engaging young yeshiva scholar who forsakes tradition and joins the secular world to win her heart.

East and West features classic scenes of Molly Picon lifting weights and boxing, teaching young villagers to shimmy and stealing away from services to gorge herself before sundown on Yom Kippur. Underlying these hijinks is veteran filmmaker Goldin's affectionate appreciation of differences, for good-natured comedy shapes his portrayal of worldly Jews encountering traditional shtetl life.

CRITICAL ACCLAIM

"East and West is a light comedy, one of the great number of Yiddish films turned out in the 1920s to entertain an audience on both sides of the Atlantic. With broad strokes and plenty of self-parody, it raises the issue of modernity."
-1989 Boston Jewish Film Festival

"There are many scenes that allow Ms. Picon to shine. With her big, laughing eyes and her Clara Bow mouth, she is most appealing... The film... effectively contrasts the lifestyles of the two families and can be used to stimulate a lively discussion about assimilation and Jewish values."
-Medium, No. 30, Winter 1984

PURCHASE DVD

HOME USE ONLY

$36.00 plus shipping
Home Use Only DVD (Not for Classroom/Institutional Use)

Does not include Public Performance Rights
Home Use Policy (pdf)

INSTITUTIONAL USE

$72.00 plus shipping
Classroom/Institutional Use Only DVD

Does not include Public Performance Rights
Institutional Use Policy (pdf)

ALSO WITH MOLLY PICON

Mamele

Yiddle with His Fiddle

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The National Center For Jewish Film
Brandeis University, Lown 102, MS053, Waltham MA 02454
P: (781) 899 7044, F: (781) 736 2070

East and West
Ost und West

Austria 1923 85 minutes B&W Silent with English and Yiddish intertitles
Directed by Sidney M. Goldin and Ivan Abramson

Cast: Molly Picon, Jacob Kalish, Sidney M. Goldin
Video Music Score (1991): Henry Sapoznik

$72 Institutional Use DVD
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$36 Home Use DVD
Buy Now

Public Exhibition Beta and 16MM Rental also available




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