Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg
Directed by Aviva Kempner. With Gertrude Berg, Lewis Berg, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sara Chase, Viola Harris, and Norman Lear. (NR)
If you've never heard of Gertrude Berg, you know her legacy. Called "The First Lady of Radio" and the "Oprah of her day," she was a multimedia sensation before the idea had currency, working in radio, film and early television. She was a pioneering woman who forged her own path in a male-dominated business, and a passionate advocate for actors. She won the first Emmy award, and ran second only to Eleanor Roosevelt as the most admired woman in America. Along the way, she almost singlehandedly invented the modern sitcom.
Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg tells her incredible story. As directed by Aviva Kempner (The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg), it's partly the history of television and partly the history of Jewish-American life in the first half of the 20th century, with all the hope and heartbreak that phrase implies. Berg's comedy was classic New York Jewish; an urban extended-family affair whose impact runs through everyone's work from Woody Allen's to Seinfeld's but also includes the Archie Bunkers of the world (tellingly, All in the Family mastermind Norman Lear appears here as a talking head).
From a childhood spent honing her timing by putting on plays at a Catskills hotel, Berg (nee Tillie Edelstein) launched a radio career in the aftermath of the 1929 Wall Street crash. When she moved her invented family to television, her trademark across-the-airshaft gossip captured a new paradigm in modern apartment living: a lack of privacy that transformed neighbors into something more like family. Half a century later, Kramer still walked through Jerry's door like it was his own.
But for all her groundbreaking work, Berg is too little remembered today. That, sad to say, is largely the product of her good character—or at least the smallness it engendered in others. A steadfast friend and staunch defender of her costars, Berg was caught up in the hysteria of the Red Scare; when sponsor General Foods demanded the firing of activist actor Philip Loeb, she refused, and her show was canceled a month later. By the time she recovered, a new show had taken television by storm: I Love Lucy. She never recovered.
Berg died in 1966, largely forgotten. In her last year on television, the Goldbergs moved to the suburbs, where they moldered in armchairs. By that point, says actor Ed Asner, he sensed that people were no longer laughing with them, but at them. "I wanted to blend," he explains; the new America wanted to forget its ethnic roots. Kempner's documentary should make us remember.
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Also this week: Pothole Pictures kicks off its fall season up in Shelburne Falls, where classic films are shown on the big screen in the town's iconic Memorial Hall. Pothole is second only to Northampton's Academy of Music as a nostalgic movie-going experience, and a night's ticket at the historic theater includes live music on a footlight-lit stage before the movie.
On Friday and Saturday nights, the 2009 series gets underway with a screening of the 1952 musical masterpiece Singin' In The Rain, starring hoofer Gene Kelly as matinee idol Don Lockwood. Caught up in the tumultuous transition from silent films to the newfangled "talkies," Lockwood and his company—an all-star cast including Donald O'Connor, Debbie Reynolds and Cyd Charisse—struggle to find their voices. The story itself is a fascinating reminder of one of Hollywood's most fruitful eras, but what keeps the film on screens year after year is the music. Penned by Adolph Green and Betty Comden, the musical numbers include Kelly's title-song romp among the lampposts and puddles, and "Make 'Em Laugh," O'Connor's ridiculously entertaining slapstick ballet.
The new season in Shelburne is touched with a bit of sadness, however: longtime projectionist Bernie Butler, a fixture at Memorial Hall and area drive-ins, passed away at the age of 83 during the first week of September. To honor Butler's contributions to the community, the 2009 program includes special screenings of the documentary short Inside Bernie's Booth. Directed by Pothole Pictures coordinator Phred DeVecca, it follows the projectionist as he readies a film in the booth and recalls his life at the movies. (A few years ago Bernie gave me a tour of his workspace, and I can verify that he was a born storyteller.) The movie starts at 7:30 p.m. both nights, with those live musical performances starting a half hour earlier: Friday features The Damon Trumpet Duet performing "gospel trumpet tunes," and on Saturday the Shelburne Falls Military Marching Band plays.
This weekend, Amherst Cinema teams with area schools to bring foreign films to town for special screenings. Saturday afternoon sees the arrival of The Korean Wedding Chest, a documentary look at traditional Korean wedding ceremonies. A fascinating mixture of ornate ritual and modern commerce, today's Korean nuptials are a wedding of old and new. Director Ulrike Ottinger—whose 2007 film Prater screens at Smith College Saturday night—also discusses her film in Amherst.
On Sunday afternoon at 1 p.m., the theater teams with the UMass Asian Arts and Culture Program to host a Bollywood event when it brings in Om Shanti Om, a 2007 fantasia from director Farah Khan, in celebration of the Indian holiday of Diwali. The nearly three-hour film stars Indian superstar Shah Rukh Khan as a '70s-era actor who dies in a failed bid to prevent the murder of a beautiful actress (Deepika Padukone). Reincarnated in the present day, his returning memories drive him to avenge the memory—in full-blown Bollywood song-and-dance style—of the woman he loved.
Across the bridge, Northampton sees its own share of special events this Saturday. The Out! For Reel Film Series, now in its second season, brings its popular screenings of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender films to Northampton High School for its International LGBT Film Fest. With entries from six countries, the festival "brings the whole LGBT community together and offers us an expansive feeling of international community," says producer Jaime Michaels. "LGBT folks are everywhere—we all know that—but these films remind us of that both in powerful and lighthearted ways. There's something for everyone." Tickets and more information are available at OutForReel.org.
Closing out the day, Pleasant Street Theater presents a midnight screening of the 1979 gore-fest Driller Killer. Abel Ferrara (Bad Lieutenant) directs and stars as troubled artist Reno Miller. Obsessed with finishing his latest painting, Miller is constantly distracted by the punk band that shares the building (the multitasking Ferrara also wrote some of the band's songs). When his dealer dismisses his work and his girlfriend leaves him, Miller begins to work through his frustrations by taking to the streets with a power drill and attacking the homeless. Ferrara is by and large a love-him-or-hate-him director who often takes genre pictures into unfamiliar, or uncomfortable, territory; for fans, Driller Killer is sure to be a midnight classic."
Jack Brown can be reached at cinemadope@gmail.com.
