Humoresque

Humoreski. US (c) 1920 International Film Service. PC: Cosmopolitan. P: W.R. Hearst, released thru Famous Players-Lasky / Paramount-Artcraft / Adolph Zukor. D: Frank Borzage. SC: Frances Marion - based on a story by Fannie Hurst. DP: Gilbert Warrenton. M: Hugo Riesenfeld, including Humoresque by Dvorák, Fritz Kreisler played the violin in the premiere. Starring Gaston Glass (Leon Kantor), Alma Rubens (Gina Berg = Minnie Ginsberg), Vera Gordon (Mama Kantor), Dore Davidson (Abraham Kantor). 5631 ft /20 fps/ 76 min. Beautiful toned print restored by UCLA, brief preserved scenes on the verge of decomposition. Viewed at the musicians' rehearsal screening at SEA, Orion, Helsinki, 4 Feb 2005. Borzage's first masterpiece revisited, has lost none of its power. There is a special visual intensity, both in the glowing faces of the actors and the glimpses of Jewish life in New York. Borzage had already discovered the close-up as an art form. The faces of the old-timers seem to be inscribed with ancient history. This film started the great 1920s Jewish cycle in American cinema, another culmination of which was The Jazz Singer, a story which has many parallels with this one: the mother's love; the Kol Nidre / the mortal music. ****