Language:
English
Pages:
1 DVD-Video (86 Min.)
,
schwarz-weiß
Year of publication:
2010
Uniform Title:
Singing in the dark
Keywords:
DVD-Video
Abstract:
Moishe Oysher plays Leo, a German concentration camp survivor suffering from traumatic amnesia. In America, Leo works as a hotel clerk next door to Luli's Gypsy Paradise, a nightclub where he is befriended by comedian Joey Napoleon (borsht belter Joey Adams). One night the two get tipsy and Leo bursts into song. "Leo the Fabulous" becomes Luli's headliner - although he can only sing when intoxicated. Meanwhile Leo's visits to a psychiatrist brings forth fragmented memories of his cantor father (shown in flashback with Oysher playing his father singing Hebrew cantorial music). When gangsters looking for Napoleon knock Leo unconscious, his memory finally returns and Oysher is shown singing in the bombed-out ruins of Berlin's Levetzow Synagogue, poignant scenes shot on location in 1955. This important and little known film is one of the first American features to dramatize the Holocaust and only the second to depict a holocaust survivor (called "refugee" as the film predates the use of the term "survivor") as the main protagonist. The film represents an early attempt to integrate the Holocaust into mainstream popular culture using American movie conventions of the period. "Singing in the Dark" is a quirky mix of 1950s American film genres - the musical, gangster and mystery movie - and the period's fascination with psychiatry. While Jews are not discussed directly, Jewish content is explicit, especially in the popular Yiddish songs (sung in English) and liturgical Hebrew songs. [jewishfilm.org]
Note:
engl.
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