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| Still from the production of the American film Humoresque (1920) with director Frank Borzage on the floor, the small girl Miriam Battista, Alma Rubens and Gaston Glass on the left, and to the right Vera Gordon with Dore Davidson standing with folded hands, on page 118 of Peter Milne, Motion Picture Directing; The Facts and Theories of the Newest Art (1922). From Wikimedia Commons. Please click to enlarge the image. |
Humoreski. US © 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 ca. 1986, some preserved scenes on the verge of decomposition.
Film concert arranged by Tuula Hällström, with Paula Nykänen (violin) and Tuula Hällström (piano). Themes from Dvorak, Kreisler, Mendelssohn, Tchaikovsky, Bach, Bruch (Kol Nidre). Orion, Helsinki (Frank Borzage), 22 Feb 2005.
Excellent musical interpretation by the two young professionals, deeply felt and well timed. This musical arrangement would be worthy of touring and a release on DVD.
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. ****
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