Restored by NCJF
One of the most versatile and resourceful filmmakers in movie history, Edgar George Ulmer (1900-1972), worked in a bewildering variety of genres, countries, and languages.
Ulmer was born in what is now the Czech republic and raised in imperial Vienna; originally a student of architecture, he broke into the film industry as a teenager and, serving mainly as a set designer, shuttled back and forth between Berlin and Hollywood through the early ‘30s. After directing a highly successful horror film, The Black Cat, for Universal in 1934, Ulmer relocated to New York City where for five years he directed an assortment of independent “ethnic” features—including a quartet of Yiddish-language talkies that have since become classics. (Jewish, but not Yiddish-speaking, Ulmer worked with many of the leading actors and writers of New York’s Yiddish theater.) In 1941, Ulmer returned to Hollywood. There, among many other low-budget genre films, he made the quintessential film noir, Detour in 1945; his last movies were produced in Europe.
An underground auteur, largely unrecognized during his lifetime, Ulmer has since taken his place among cinema’s legendary figures—an inspiration for the French new wave and a precursor of the American independent film movement, as well as an innovative and unique stylist in his own right. —J. Hoberman
American Matchmaker Amerikaner Shadkhn
USA 1940 87 minutes B&W
Yiddish with English subtitles
Preserved, digitally restored and re-mastered by NCJF
Directed by Edgar G. Ulmer
Screenplay by S. Castle
Music and Lyrics by Sam Morgenstern, William Mercur
Starring Leo Fuchs, Judith Abarbanel, Judel Dubinksy, Anna Guskin,
Celia Bodkin, Abraham LaxAlso included:
I Want to Be A Boarder
USA 1937 15 minutes B&W
Yiddish with English subtitles
Produced & Directed by Joseph Seiden
Starring: Leo Fuchs, Yetta Zwerling$72 Institutional Use DVD
$36 Home Use DVDPublic Exhibition Beta, 16MM, 35MM Rental also available
Leo Fuchs, known on Second Avenue as “the Yiddish Fred Astaire,” plays an elegant and eligible bachelor who can never seem to close the marriage deal. Edgar G. Ulmer’s last Yiddish movie was also his most modern, an art deco romantic comedy about male ambivalence and Jewish assimilation. With its urbane, neurotic hero, American Matchmaker looks ahead to the films of Woody Allen. Also included, the hilarious short I Want to Be a Boarder – a small classic of Yiddish absurdism – showcases Fuch’s comic virtuosity.
“As in the best Yiddish theater traditions, there is a successful combination of humor and schmaltz with the sentimentality at the end well-earned by the comic insights along the way... None is more charming than American Matchmaker. The title says it all – a clash between the urbane, slick manners of the new country and the old, busybody communal ways of the shtetl.”
– Films, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 1983“If you can’t laugh at yourself, it’s going to be a tough life.” (refers to I Want to Be a Boarder.)
– Joseph Seiden, Brooklyn Daily Eagle
$36.00 plus shipping
Home Use Only DVD (Not for Classroom/Institutional Use)Does not include Public Performance Rights
Home Use Policy (pdf)
$72.00 plus shipping
Classroom/Institutional Use Only DVDDoes not include Public Performance Rights
Institutional Use Policy (pdf)
Or Purchase The Axel Corti Collection of 4 DVDs:
$126.00 plus shipping
Home Use Only DVD (Not for Classroom/Institutional Use)Does not include Public Performance Rights
Home Use Policy (pdf)$300.00 plus shipping
Classroom/Institutional Use Only DVDDoes not include Public Performance Rights
Institutional Use Policy (pdf)
Home Use policy (pdf)
Green Fields Grine Felder
USA 1937 97 minutes B&W
Yiddish with new English subtitles
Preserved, digitally restored and re-mastered by NCJF
Directed by Edgar G. Ulmer, Jacob Ben-Ami
Original play by Peretz Hirshbein
Music by Vladimir Heifetz
Starring Michael Goldstein, Helen Beverly, Isidore Cashier, Anna Appel,
Leah Noemi, Max Vodnoy, Saul Levine, Herschel Bernardi, Dena Drute
$72 Institutional Use DVD
$36 Home Use DVDPublic Exhibition Beta, 16MM, 35MM Rental also available
Best Foreign Film 1938 (France)
An ascetic young scholar ventures into the Lithuanian countryside, searching for the city of “true Jews.” The most critically acclaimed and beloved of American Yiddish talkies, Edgar G. Ulmer’s soulful open-air adaptation of Peretz Hirshbein’s classic play heralded the Golden Age of Yiddish cinema. Green Fields celebrates an idyllic world of tribal wholeness and innate piety – no other movie has ever represented the shtetl with such lyricism.
“The cast is brilliant… The direction by Jacob Ben-Ami and Edgar G. Ulmer has caught the beauty and poetry of the classic work and transferred it to the screen in a masterful manner.”
– The Film Daily, 20 Oct. 1937“A new high in vernacular art!”
– New York World Telegram
“Sunlit and air-filled, yet suffused with yearning, the film recalls Renoir and Vigo... It exudes a dreamy pantheism...”
– J. Hoberman, Bridge of Light: Yiddish Film Between Two Worlds
"REPRESENTING THE SHTETL ON FILM"
Jewish Herald-Voice Houston, October 2005
Home Use policy (pdf)
The Light Ahead Fishke the Lame
USA 1939 94 minutes B&W
Yiddish with English subtitles
Preserved, digitally restored and re-mastered by NCJF
Produced & Directed by Edgar G. Ulmer for Carmel Productions, Inc.
Based on stories by S.Y. Abramovitch (Mendele Mokher Seforim)
Screenplay by Chaver Pahver, Sherle (Shirley) Ulmer, Edgar G. Ulmer
Starring: Isidore Cashier, Helen Beverly, David Opatoshu, Rosetta Bialis,
Tillie Rabinowitz, Anna Guskin, Celia Bodkin, Jennie Cashier
$72 Institutional Use DVD
$36 Home Use DVDPublic Exhibition Beta, 16MM, 35MM Rental also available
The Light Ahead is possibly the greatest of Edgar G. Ulmer’s shtetl films. Here, the director counterpoints his pastoral Green Fields to criticize the poverty and superstition that oppress a pair of star-crossed lovers. Made on the eve of World War II, The Light Ahead is at once romantic, expressionist, and painfully conscious of the danger about to engulf European Jews.
Impoverished and disabled lovers Fishke and Hodel dream of life in the big city of Odessa, free from the poverty and stifling old-world prejudices of the shtetl. The benevolent and enlightened bookseller Mendele helps them, turning small-town superstitions to their advantage. Based on Mendele Mokher Seforim's story of love frustrated by small-town ignorance, this luminous allegory of escape marries Edgar Ulmer's masterful direction with superb acting by members of New York's Artef and Yiddish Art Theaters.
“A gem radiating warmth and honesty.”
– Jewish Weekly“An astonishing artifact that is equal parts vaudeville schtick, Talmudic exegesis, and ghetto melodrama.”
– Village Voice“Yiddish film producers will probably look to The Light Ahead...for their inspiration when new productions are under consideration. As well they might, for the film touches undreamed of heights.”
– New York World Telegram, 23 Sept. 1939“Central to the film is a riveting performance by Helen Beverly as the blind orphan, Hodel... Beverly and Opatoshu are perhaps the most beautiful couple in the history of Yiddish cinema, and their scenes have a touching erotic chemistry.”
– J. Hoberman, Bridge of Light: Yiddish Film Between Two Worlds
Home Use policy (pdf)
The Singing Blacksmith Yankl Der Schmid
USA 1938 105 minutes B&W
Yiddish with new English subtitles
Preserved, digitally restored and re-mastered by NCJF
Directed by Edgar G. Ulmer
Written by David Pinski
Starring Moishe Oysher, Miriam Riselle, Florence Weiss, Anna Appel,
Herschel Bernardi, Michael Goldstein and Max Vodnoy$72 Institutional Use DVD
$36 Home Use DVDPublic Exhibition Beta, 16MM, 35MM Rental also available
Moishe Oysher, the renowned cantor and star of Yiddish radio, stars in Edgar G. Ulmer’s musical version of David Pinski’s play Yankl der Shmid. Singing, dancing, and flashing his eyes, Oysher gives his most robust performance as a passionate shtetl blacksmith who must struggle against temptation to become a mensch. Recently rediscovered footage makes this the most complete extant version of Ulmer’s lively folk operetta, replete with an example of Yiddish swing.
“Sincerity and richly Jewish characters taken from the source.”
– Archer Winston, New York Post“The Singing Blacksmith advances the art of the Yiddish film and adds to the gayety of Jewish life.”
– Daily Worker“…bright, frequently thrilling entertainment.”
– Brooklyn Eagle“…fine photography and good direction make the film an outstanding comedy-drama.”
– Daily News
"THE SINGING BLACKSMITH IS A SLICE OF HISTORY"
The Jewish Advocate, July 2007
Home Use policy (pdf)
A set of all four DVDs is available at a special home price of $126 (plus $8 for shipping)
Home Use policy (pdf)
A set of all four DVDs is available at an institutional price of $252 (plus $8 for shipping).
USE ONLY
The National Center For Jewish Film
Brandeis University, Lown 102, MS053, Waltham MA 02454
P: (781) 899 7044, F: (781) 736 2070
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