as anyone who reads this blog knows, im a big fan of movies and an even bigger fan of movies with jewish themes. i reviewed the movie
making trouble almost two years ago after i viewed it at the jewish film festival. since i wrote this review january 23, 2008 which was at the beginning of my blogging career i thought this movie deserves a second mention for those of you who may not have seen this review, or the movie for that matter.
this review is a bit updated from my last review because after a second viewing of the film i realized that i had mixed up some of the facts in my first review! anyway, here goes....
making trouble is a film directed by rachel talbot and presented by the jewish womens archive. the movie is about funny jewish women, featuring molly picon, fanny brice, sophie tucker , joan rivers, gilda radnor , and wendy wasserstein. though joan rivers is not the youngest of the lot, she is the only one still alive. the movie begins with four younger jewish comediennes- judy gold, jackie hoffman, cory kahaney and jessica kirson sitting at katz's deli discussing the topic of jewish women in comedy and introducing these legendary ladies of comedy.
the first great lady of jewish comedy featured was molly picon. she grew up in philadelphia and started out performing in vaudeville. subsequently she starred in many yiddish films and plays. to me she is legendary even though i had never heard of her until i happened upon her 1980's autobiography at the library. after reading about her life i watched many of her films on video from the library and became a huge fan.the woman did somersaults at eighty!! one of the most touching scenes recounted in the film was how molly went to the d.p. camps after the holocaust and performed for the survivors. in an interview, she spoke of a mother who held out her small child and begged molly to perform saying " my child has never heard laughter. perform for her!" and she spoke of child survivors who she had performed for outside who insisted she perform even in the rain. it was amazing to see film clips of an exuberant molly playing a teenager in yiddle mitn fiddle at 37 years of age.
next up was fanny brice who was quite a star in her time as well. my parents have always remembered her playing baby snooks. fanny brice was so popular that a betty boop cartoon even features her in cartoon. fanny brice was a beautiful woman, but since she didnt posses the blond haired, blue eyed look of the time so she became a comedic actress instead of the romantic lead. she eventually got a nose job to look less jewish. from the footage she looked very jewish , but contrary to what many say, she was not ugly. apparently she did not have a yiddish accent, but affected one when she performed.
sophie tucker , who id heard of but knew the least about was also featured. she grew up in connecticut to an observant jewish family. after a brief marriage and the birth of a son she went off to become a performer at the tender age of 17. to me she seemed the least jewish of all of the comediennes featured even though her life was very much entwined in the jewish community.
sophie's grand-niece was featured giving insight about her aunt. eerily this niece very much resembles her great aunt.
next up was joan rivers. when they showed a recent clip of her it was heartbreaking. she has done so much plastic surgery that she looks more like jocelyn wildenstein than jocelyn wildenstein herself. id seen old footage of joan rivers when i was a child, but this was the first time i had seen old footage of hers as an adult. she was truly funny from the start. the thing that i have always like about joan rivers is that she never denies her jewishness. in fact she owns it. upon viewing her pre-plastic surgery self, i realized that she never needed any to begin with.
gilda radner was always my favorite on saturday night live. i read a lovely book about her by alan zwiebel called
bunny, bunny. alan zwiebel was featured in her retrospective in the film. the film included my favorite snl faux commercial for jewess jeans. i hadnt seen it in years. it was just as funny now as it had been then . they also showed a clip with bill murray and john belushi where gilda lights the menorah and says the bracha over the candles. they also showed clips of lisa lupner and roseann roseanadann.
last but not least was wendy wasserstein. though i admit that ive only read a few of her works i think that she was truly amazing. it is so unfortunate that she died so young. i met her in person a few years ago when she did a book reading at barnes and noble for her book
shiksa goddess. wendy was such a regular person. she appeared to be the type of person you'd want to be friends with. she was so real. the interviews for this film were taped right before her passing. in fact she passed away before the film was made. it was hard to watch those recent clips of her because she looked like she was in so much pain. thankfully there were other clips of her when she was more vibrant. when
the sisters rosensweig came out they wanted her to change the name because it sounded too jewish. why did she have to call it
the sisters rosensweig? they said that people around the country would not be able to relate to it. to which she replied " people in around the country don't have sisters?"
i appreciated the contrast between the younger jewish comediennes and the older ones. as you are hearing them retell the stories of these great ladies, you hope that one day their careers will be retold on film.
i wished the film would never end, but alas it did. it was perfection. i highly recommend it. it was a fabulous retrospective with an equal mix of facts i had already known and facts i was honored to learn. once in awhile it is screened around the united states and its now available on dvd through the
jwa.
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