A Mostly Complete List Of Rock Posters On WKRP In Cincinnati

Last year Howard Hessemen, AKA Dr Johnny Fever of "WKRP In Cincinatti", died aged 81, and the year before Frank Bonner (Herb Tarlek) died at 79. Like any 80's kid who was into music I grew up on "WKRP" which aired from 1978-82, and it's pretty much the only sitcom I would actually watch religiously (along with "The Monkees") and still have literally every line of dialogue memorized and I'm not even alone on this. I'm not going to say "WKRP" and Johnny Fever are the reason I got involved with radio but it's not not the reason either. Other attempts at Rock related sitcoms have never worked out and haved dated even worse but the mighty 'KRP maintains a devoted audience even forty years later even though it was not really a massive hit at the time. The show was blessed with a fine ensemble cast and some excellent writing but what really earned WKRP it's cult status was music and radio nerds. Only a few episodes were really about music as the main plot driver, the bulk of the stories were about the sharply defined characters with the radio station being the backdrop but the show had a good understanding of radio (some of the producers and cast had worked in radio) and made excellent use of incidental and background music and (usually) showed a sincere understanding of the worlds of Rock and radio and it's worth remembering that some of the writers and cast had previous radio or music careers Howard Hesseman had in fact been a DJ at a popular FM Rock station in San Fransisco in the Psychedelic sixties while Gordon Jump (as Station Manger Arthur Carlson) had been an AM radio DJ in the early sixties, Jan Smithers (as Bailey Quarters) had sung in a Psychedelic Folk Rock band Hot Club Of Friends with her then boyfriend Christopher Mancini (son of Henry) who had scored an appearence on "The Midnight Special in 1973 and even Carol Bruce (as station owner Mother Carlson) had been a Big Band singer and dancer in the 1940's. Instead of relying on the sort of sappy Pop music and Disco that would have been popular at the time but would not have dated well WKRP instead used a combination of Classic Rock tracks (notably Clapton, Pink Floyd, Foreigner, Queen, Stones, Little Richard, Elvis, Ted Nugent), some riskier New Wave which turned out to also become classics (The Police, The Cars, The Pretenders, Blondie, even Captain Beefheart), Smooth R&B and Light Jazz (Grover Washington, Bill Evans) and Reggae (Bob Marley).



They didn't get everything right of course, Radio nerds point out that WKRP only ever had four full-time DJ's at any one time; Dr Johnny Fever (in the morning drive spot, from 6AM to about noon), in the afternoon there was the once mentioned Dean The Dream later replaced by the occasionally seen Rex Erhardt (presumably from noon to early evening), Venus Flytrap (evening till around midnight) and the often mentioned but never actually seen Moss Stieger as the overnight spot, along with a Sunday morning show with the Rev Little Ed Pembrook all of which is wildly impractical. Also no AM station (and probably no non-campus FM station either) would have a programming schedule as wildly varied as WKRP's which ranged from Fever's Classic Rock and New Wave to Earhrdt's Yacht Rock and Soft Pop to Venus' romantic R&B and light Jazz. We never actually learned what Stieger played but he seemed to be a burned out hippie. But the concept of the show often made mention of the station's quirky and unprofessional approach as part of it's charm so this is acceptable enough in context. More noticably were the few episode that actually had music related storylines front and center which music nerds would eyeroll over. One such was a story featuring an ex flame of Program Director Andy Travis named Linda Taylor (played by Barrie Youngfellow who also died in 2022) who had become a major star as a singer in the mold of a mid seventies style Country Pop singer like Linda Ronstadt or Crystal Gayle who was already out of fashion by 1980 and unlikely to attract the kind of attention the show gave her. Another was a guest spot by Country singer/songwriter Hoyt Axton who once again played a type of early 70's Pop Country that was long obsolete on Top 40 radio. The Axton episode was actually one of only two to have actual musicians guest on the show.

THE RAMONES  ~  "DO YOU REMEMBER ROCK & ROLL RADIO";


But then there was the still iconic Scum Of The Earth episode. Scum were WKRP's answer to Punk Rock (or as they insisted, Hoodlum Rock) played by Micheal Des Barres, an actual singer and two other dudes. Scum were the stereotypical hotel trashing, audience baiting, DJ bashing bad boys. Musically they had more in common with an inferior Van Halen than the Clash but the episode had no lack of quotable lines that can still be recited by any rocker over the age of 30. Des Barres had had been kicking around the fringes of the UK and Los Angeles Glam Punk scene since 1972 (he also had some acting credits going back the sixties as a child actor including "To Sir With Love") with his bands Silverhead and Detective, without having any critical or fan success. His bands tried to appropriate some of the energy of Punk with the sheen of Glam and Glitter bands and the denser sound of mainstream Hard Rock bands like Aerosmith or Nazareth without managing to achieve the better qualities of any of them or any memorable songs. Silverhead recorded three albums between 1972 and 1975 but their most notable legacy being bassist Nigel Harrison who went on to join Blondie, with two others joining ex Led Zeppelin singer Robert Plant's band.

SILVERHEAD  ~  "16 & SAVAGED";


By the time of 1978 he had a second band, Detective, but Punk and New Wave had happened and Des Barres' Cock Rock antics seemed dangerously out of touch and the critics and actual punk scene despised them especially since two of the members had served in Steppenwolf and keyboardist Tony Kaye in Yes, the latter being one of worst possible pedigrees for the Punk/New Wave Era. Musically they sort of resembled the Tubes as fronted by David Lee Roth which might have worked if they had any of the Tubes catchy songs or sense of humour nor were they prepared to go as over-the-top as the Tubes' Fee Waybill which was a little odd given Des Barres roots as child actor. They might have been better off if they had just embraced his Cock Rock instincts like Van Halen or the original Quiet Riot (both of whom were starting out) but that's assuming they had a flashy guitarist like Eddie Van Halen or Randy Rhodes which they did not. They did tour with Nazareth and Kiss who liked them well enough to record (but not release) one of their songs. Detective were offered but passed up a chance to record "I Need A Lover" written by a young John Cougar which would later become Cougar's first minor hit as well as being recorded by Pat Benatar. The actual music for Scum would be provided by Detective but the band would be portrayed by Des Barres (named Dog) and two other actors, Peter Elbling (as Blood) and Jim Henderson as Nigel. The episode was easily the most publicity Detective ever got but it wasn't enough to lead to any real breakthrough for the band who broke up in 1979 after being dropped by their label. If they had been around for the late eighties Hair Metal scene they might have had better luck, or at least Des Barres might have. By contrast Blondie credited WKRP for helping to promo "Heart Of Glass" and even sent a gold record that would be displayed in the bullpen for the show's duration so apparently WKRP was thought to have some promotional clout, just not for Detective.

DETECTIVE  ~  "DETECTIVE MAN";


Post WKRP in 1984 Des Barres again lucked out getting tapped to replace Robert Palmer in Power Station, another New Wave supergroup that included John and Andy Taylor from Duran Duran drummer Tony Thompson from Chic who had already scored one hit album but with Des Barres all they managed was a another TV guest shot (this time on "Miami Vice") before they too broke up. Des Barres did go on to form another band in 1984, Checkered Past, a sort of Punk/New Wave supergroup including Nigel Harrison, Frank Infante and Clem Burke from Blondie, Steve Jones from the Sex Pistols and Tony Sales from Iggy Pop's band which once again failed with both critics and audiences after one album breaking up after about a year. After that aside from being rumoured as a possible replacement for David Lee Roth in Van Halen his biggest claim to fame was marrying super groupie Pamela Des Barres along with a few TV guest spots and fronting his own solo band. Ironically one of his most successful TV roles was in the 1991 remake series "The New WKRP" where he played a morning Zoo type DJ. As for the rest of Scum; the fellow Brit Peter Elbling was an experienced actor having appeared on Broadway as well as in the Rock Opera "Phantom Of The Paradise" (billed as Peter Oblong) where he was the singer in each of the weird bands killed off by the Phantom, he has continued to appear in film and TV to date. Jim Henderson, the other member of Scum, is a mysterious figure. Henderson has only one other listed credit on IMDB as a "Punk Rocker" in a 1981 episode of "Charlie's Angels" and is otherwise billed as a drummer. However there is no trace of what bands he played in (he didn't play in either of des Barres's bands) so either none of his bands recorded anything or he was primarily a session musician. A Google search turns up absolutely no trace of him since and I have no idea what became of him or even if he's still alive. His IMDB entry does list another film credit from the 1950's but unless he was a child actor this is probably some even more obscure bit player with the same name. These types of mistakes sometimes happen with the more obscure entries on IMDB.    

  THE SCUM OF THE EARTH  ~  "GOT ENOUGH LOVE";


                      Part of the fun for music nerds was playing spot the band with the numorous records played and posters displayed at the station. As a measure of the devotion music and radio nerds have for WKRP some dude managed to compile a list of every song used during the show's run which can be found here. Aside from a handfull of tunes recorded specifically for certain stories the show made good use of actual records of the era. This would later cause problems with copyright issues when the show went into syndication for reruns as well during which these songs would be switched out in favour of generic rock tracks much to the fans annoyance. This also tied up the eventual DVD release which was widley panned for the sloppy musical choices stifling subsequent releases until a rerelease in the 2010's. Besides the music the show's authenticity was boosted by decorating the set with contemporary posters encouraging eagle-eyed music nerds to play spot the band. And who's a radio & music nerd with two thumbs to type with? This Guy! Accordingly I've gone through every episode to list every poster used during the show's run which range from mainstream AM Pop to R&B to Hard Rock and New Wave and even some Jazz.



A couple of notes; Most of the posters were from the second season onward presumably because they started getting serviced by record companies who would have had their own artists they wanted to promo. The list isn't quite all inclusive as there are about two dozen posters I either couldn't quite make out either because they were too small, obscured, or you only catch too brief a glimpse to be read even using pause along with a few I just couldn't recognize. Several artists appeared more than once, if the same poster was repeated I only counted it as one however when a different poster of the same artist was used I noted them separately.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
AD/DC ~ "FOR THOSE ABOUT TO ROCK";


The A's
AC/DC (X3)
Adam & The Ants
Aerosmith (twice)
Greg Allman
Herb Alpert
America
Joan Armatrading
Patti Austin
Albert Ayler (at Johnny's pad)
The Average White Band
The Babys
The Beat (the US band with Paul Collins, not the English Beat)

THE PAUL COLLINS BEAT ~ "ROCK & ROLL GIRLS";


Joan Baez (in a photo with Bob Dylan at Johnny's pad)
Jeff Beck
The Bee Gee's
Pat Benatar (twice)
George Benson
Black Sabbath (twice)
The Blasters

THE BLASTERS ~ "BORDER RADIO";


Blondie (three times including a gold record)
The Blues Brothers (X3)
The Brothers Johnson
Irene Cara
George Carlin
Kim Carnes
Jim Carroll
The Cars (twice)

THE CARS ~ "SHAKE IT UP";


Carlene Carter
Roseanne Cash
Ray Charles
City Boy
Eric Clapton (X3)
Stanley Clarke

THE CLASH ~ "THIS IS RADIO CLASH";


The Clash (X4)
The Commodores
Perry Como (at the transmitter)
Rita Coolidge (twice)
Ry Cooder (twice)
Elvis Costello (twice)

ELVIS COSTELLO & THE ATTRACTIONS ~ "RADIO RADIO";


John Cougar

Crosby, Stills & Nash (X3)
Rodney Crowell
The Cretones
Charlie Daniels Band (twice)
Detective
Willie DeVille
Devo (twice)
Dire Straits
The Doors (plus one in Johnny's pad)
Bob Dorough (at Johnny's pad)
Duran Duran
The Durocs
Bob Dylan (twice, also one of Dylan & Joan Baez at Johnny's pad)
The Eagles (twice)
Earth, Wind & Fire
Ebonee Webb
Dave Edmunds
ELO (X3)

ELO ~ "ROCK & ROLL IS KING";


Emerson, Lake & Palmer
Marianne Faithful
Jay Ferguson
Fleetwood Mac
Mick Fleetwood
Dan Fogleberg & Tim Weisberg
Foghat
Foreigner
Peter Frampton
J Geils Band (twice)

THE GO-GO'S ~ "WE GOT THE BEAT";


The Go-Go's
The Grateful Dead (X3)
Hall & Oates
Steve Hackett (twice)
Heart
Sammy Hagar (X4)
Bill Haley

BILL HALEY & THE COMETS ~ "ROCK AROUND THE CLOCK";


Hall & Oates
Emmylou Harris (X3)
Jimi Hendrix (X4)
Patrick Hernandez
Lena Horne (twice)
Ian Hunter (twice)
The Inmates
Interview
Joe Jackson (four times)

JOE JACKSON ~ "STEPPING OUT";


Michael Jackson
Rick James
Al Jarreau
Jefferson Starship (twice)
Jethro Tull
Olivia Newton John
Grace Jones
Rickie Lee Jones
Janis Joplin (at Johnny's pad)
Journey
Chaka Kahn (twice)
Kansas (twice)
The Kings
The Kingston Trio (at the transmitter)
The Kinks
Kiss
The Knack
Kraftwerk (twice)

KRAFTWERK ~ "RADIOACTIVITY";


Krokus
Nicholette Larson (twice)
Led Zeppelin (twice)
LeRoux
John Lennon (X3, twice with Yoko Ono)
Huey Lewis & The News
Little Feat (twice)
The Little River Band (twice)
Loverboy
Lena Lovich

LENA LOVICH ~ "LUCKY NUMBER";


Paul McCartney & Wings
Michael MacDonald
Madness
Melissa Manchester
Chuck Mangione
Barry Manilow (used as a dartboard by Johnny & Venus)
Bob Marley (twice)
Steve Martin
Randy Meisner
Pat Metheny
Midnight Star
Missing Persons

MISSING PERSONS ~ "MENTAL HOPSCOTCH";


Ronnie Montrose
Van Morrison (twice)
The Motels (X3)
Gary Myrick (twice)
Randy Newman
Juice Newton
Stevie Nicks (twice)
Ted Nugent
Oingo Boingo
Yoko Ono (with John Lennon)
Robert Palmer (twice)
Parliament Funkadelic
Jaco Pastorius
Pearl Harbor & The Explosions
Pink Floyd
The Pointer Sisters and Bonnie Pointer solo
The Police (X3)
Jean Luc Ponty

THE POP ~ "BEAT TEMPTATION";


The Pop
Elvis Presley
Billy Preston (twice)
The Pretenders (X3)
Prism
Quarterflash (twice)
Suzi Quatro

SUZI QUATRO ~ "ROCK HARD";


Queen (twice)
Bonnie Raitt
Gilda Radner
Red Rider
Leon Redbone
Kenny Rogers
The Rolling Stones (X4 plus a photo of Mick & Johnny in Johnny's pad)

THE ROLLING STONES ~ "IT'S ONLY ROCK & ROLL";


The Romantics
Linda Ronstadt (twice)
Diana Ross
Todd Rundgren
Sad Cafe
Leo Sayer (twice)
Bob Seger (twice)
The Selector

THE SELECTER ~ "ON MY RADIO";


Dell Shannon
Simon & Garfunkle
Southside Johnny & The Asbury Jukes
The Sports
Split Enz
The Michael Stanley Band
Starbuck
Ringo Starr (twice)
Steely Dan
Rod Stewart (X4)
Streetheart

STREETHEART ~ "HOLLYWOOD";


Styx
Kasim Sultan
Supertramp (X3)
The Sweet
Syreeta
The Temptations
George Thorogood
Peter Tosh
The Tubes (twice)
Twennynine
Ultravox (twice)
The Undertones

THE UNDERTONES ~ "TOP TWENTY";


U2 (twice)
Van Halen
The Vapors
Tata Vega
Grover Washington Jr
The Whispers
The Who
Steve Winwood
Gary Wright
XTC
The Yellow Magic Orch
The Yellowjackets
Neil Young (X3 plus one at Andy's pad)
Warren Zevon

XTC ~ "THIS IS POP";


Plus there were posters for local Jazz club The Blue Whisp (at Johnny's pad), record companies Stiff and Portrait Records and a few compilation albums including;

"The Last Waltz", the Martin Scorsese directed film about the final concert of the Band featuring Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, Muddy Waters, Neil Young, Neil Diamond, Joni Mitchell, Emmylou Harris, Van Morrison, Ron Wood, Ronnie Hawkins, Paul Butterfield, Ringo Starr, Dr John, Bobby Charles & the Staple Singers.

"Propaganda" a compilation of UK New Wave including early singles by The Police, Squeeze, Joe Jackson, The Secret & The Reds

"Times Square" Soundtrack including more Punk & New Wave figures including The Ramones, The Ruts, Pretenders, Roxy Music, Talking Heads, Gary Numan, XTC, The Cure, Lou Reed, Suzi Quatro, Patti Smith, and David Johansen

THE RAMONES ~ "WE WANT THE AIRWAVES";


A look at the bands listed shows a far more interesting mix of you would normally expect from commercial radio (actually Toronto & Hamilton had quite a varied and lively radio scene in the early eighties as would a few other places; New York, San Francisco, L/A, Boston and Windsor/Detroit, but not a commercial station in a smaller more conservative town in the Midwest) with genres ranging from the expected classic rock (AC/DC, Aerosmith, Zeppelin, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, the Stones, Doors, ELO, Heart, Rod Stewart, Dell Shannon, Neil Young, Hendrix, Supertramp, Jethro Tull,The Who) some R&B (Earth Wind & Fire, Parliament, Rick James, Chaka Kahn, Irene Cara, Grover Washington Jr, George Benson, Ray Charles), Reggae (Bob Marley, Peter Tosh), Soft Rock (Dan Fogleberg, Leo Sayer, Kim Carnes, Juice Newton, Nicolette Larson), Country Pop (Kenny Rogers, Emmylou Harris, Carlene Carter, Roseanne Cash), Jazz (Jaco Pastorius, Jon Luc Ponty, Albert Ayler, Lena Horne, Al Jarreau), Oldies (Elvis, Bill Haley, the Kingston Trio), Comedy (Steve Martin, Gilda Radner, George Carlin), a little Metal (Sabbath, Van Halen, Krokus) and a surprising amount of New Wave for a midwestern AM radio station in 1978-82 (The Clash, Pretenders, Knack, Motels, Cars, Romantics, Police, Vapors, Split Enz, Missing Persons, Inmates, Cretones, Undertones, Ultravox, Kraftwerk, Yellow Magic Orch, XTC, Lene Lovich, Elvis Costello, Jim Carroll, Joe Jackson, Dave Edmunds, Suzi Quatro). There are some interesting choices; a small Duran Duran poster can be seen a year before they really scored any stateside success, likewise U2 show up twice a good three or four years before they made a big break in America, the Motels show up three times although at the time they were a cool but fairly obscure artsy New Wave band who would later score a few hits after the show's run, Missing Persons were another new band with a single EP and some good reviews but they also wouldn't have a hit until later, Ska bands Madness and the Selector would never score much US success, Lene Lovich, Oingo Boingo, the Sports, Pearl Harbor & the Explosions, Yellow Magic Orch, Sad Cafe, City Boy, the Pop (the US band not to be UK band the Pop Group) and the Beat (the US band with Paul Collins, not to be confused with the English Beat) were other New Wave bands that got some good reviews but would score no hits. John Cougar was just getting started and had only minor success but ironically as mentioned above one of his songs ("I Need A Lover") had been offered to Detective who turned it down only to see both Cougar and Pat Benatar havesome success with it. Kasim Sultan was the bassist with Prog Band Utopia but his solo career never amounted to much however he went on to a long career as a session bassist with Patti Smyth & Scandal, Joan Jett, Ronnie Spector, Todd Rundgren, Meat Loaf, Steve Stevens, Rick Derringer and the Rubinoos among others while Jay Ferguson was a former member of Prog/Psyche bands Spirit and Jo Jo Gunne but his biggest seller would turn out to be the theme from the TV series "The Office" thirty years later. Even more obscure, at least to me, were R&B bands Twennynine, Le Rouge, Syreeta and Ebonee Webb, Gospel singer Tata Vega, Jazz singer Bob Dorough and singer/songwriter Gary Myrick. BTW a parody in "Mad Magazine" had ones for Minnie Pearl and Jim Nabors which wasn't really funny but it was actually funnier than the rest if the article thought it was.

Ironically while Van Halen show up only once (for their first album) future singer Sammy Hager has three posters with one up for much of the second season. There's a fair amount of Cancon with not only the well established Neil Young, Joni Mitchell and Loverboy but also the less well known Red Rider, Streetheart and the Kings, no Rush though. As an additional note WKRP literally had much more black representation both visably and audibly than MTV did at that time (starting on air in 1981) and for a few years later when they were still so notoriously lily white that David Bowie actually brought it up during an on-air MTV interview.

AC/DC  ~  "LET THERE BE ROCK";


WKRP went off the air after only four seasons, which is one year less then the five seasons normally needed to sell a show for reruns in syndication but it's cult audience insured that it would eventually make its way into reruns throughout the eighties and nineties and eventually a DVD release of the first season. Unfortunately these reruns suffered from a problem unique to the show. Unlike other sitcoms WKRP used a lot of recognizable music which led to a tangle of copyright issues that would lead to having these reruns having most of its music removed and replaced with generic backing tracks. Since not only was much of the music used classic songs but some of the music in the show was integral to some of the jokes this attracted a lot of disappointed reviews from diehard fans and led to delaying the release of the complete series for several more years until the copyright issues could be sorted out. As it turned out the two episodes that featured guest spots from actual musicians, namely the Scum Of The Earth/Detective and Hoyt Axton episodes were virtually the only ones to keep their original music throughout the various syndication runs. Another ironic note; While Detective (who were on the show as Scum Of The Earth) get a poster in the same episode Hoyt Axton (who was also on an episode where he sang) did not. 

  

Surprisingly few of the show's cast maintained high profile careers. Loni Anderson (as Jennifer Marlowe) became a major sex symbol from the show but post WKRP her career declined with her biggest roles being a short lived TV detective series with former "Wonder Woman" Lynda Carter and playing the title roles in a Jayne Mansfield biopic then she essentially dropped out of sight to marry Burt Reynolds in 1988, they would have a messy divorce in 1994. After a few TV guest spots Jan Smithers (Bailey Quarters) would also retire to marry, in this case to James Brolin in 1986, they divorced in 1995 and she moved to Canada for a while before returning stateside where she remains. Of the rest of the cast, Gordon Jump (Arthur Carlson), Frank Bonner (Herb Tarlek) and Richard Sanders (Les Nesman) appeared in various TV guest spots with Gordon Jump notably appearing in a controversial episode of "Different Strokes", he died in 2003. Only Howard Hessemen (Johnny Fever) and Tim Ried (Venus Flytrap) went on to regular a series with Ried appearing in "Frank's Place" (1987-88) a sitcom about a restaurant owner and "Snoops" (1989-90) a detective show.



Hessemen became a semi-regular in the sitcom "One Day At A Time" from 1982-84 and "Head Of The Class" (1986-90) a highschool sitcom where he played a father figure teacher that was actually a hit although he was publically dissatisfied with his straight-man role and the shown has been largely forgotten about. Better remembered was his cameo in the classic Rock Mocumentary "This Is Spinal Tap". A word about two other cast members; Carol Bruce (Mother Carlson) had a career as a Big Band singer, dancer on Broadway and film actress going back to the 1940's, she died in 2007, actually outliving her onscreen son Gordon Jump a role that had originally been played by screen veteran Sylvia Sidney in the pilot episode until she backed out disliking the show and cast as silly and beneath her. The scene stealing character of Hirsch, Mother Carlson's ancient, sardonic butler was played by Ian Wolfe. Born in 1896 he had a respected career as a character actor going back to the early days of talkies including roles in "Zorro" in the 30's, several of the Basil Rathbone "Sherlock Holmes" films and Hitchcock's "Saboteur" in the 40's, Billy Wilder's classic "Witness For The Prosecution" and "Rebel without A Cause" in the 50's, "The "Twilight Zone" and "Star Trek" in the 60's and George Lucas's debut "THX" in the 70's. The odd thing about his roles is that from the start of his career he always played older witty, gentlemanly characters and always looked the same; a slight man with stooped shoulders and receding hairline with a distinctive lilting voice and mid-Atlantic accent. It was as if he was never actually young. By the time of "WKRP" he was in his eighties and Hirsch became his most iconic and beloved role, he continued acting including in cameos in Warren Beatty's "Reds" and "Dick Tracy" being his final role in 1990. He died two years later aged 95.            

THE KINKS ~ "COME DANCING";


The show stayed a cult favorite through the eighties and was finally revived in a new series "The New WKRP" from 1991 to 1993 which included half of the original cast in Arthur Carlson, Les Nesman, Herb Tarlek and for several episodes even Johnny Fever along with guest spots from Venus, Jennifer and Mother Carlson. However in spite of having much of the original cast and producers and treating the original series and characters with affection and respect the show simply wasn't funny and never caught on. After some initial attention from the original fans interest dropped off and not even the keeping the original's famously catchy if incomprehensible closing theme, having Michael Des Barres as a DJ and the much hyped return of Johnny Fever could save the show. The revival is largley dismissed by all but the most diehard fans and I have not included any of its episodes in my above list of posters which would have also been from a different era of music and radio. As it happens the reboot actually had far less music and posters anyway, possibly they were looking to avoid the copyright issues that plagued the earlier show when it came to syndication. As it happened they weren't around long enough for that to become an issue.

In one final legacy of the show a few Punk and Metal bands have named themselves the Scum Of The Earth, a 1990's Toronto Indie Garage band named themselves Buzz Sapien after the shows stage manager and in 2004 veteran Toronto band the Rheostatics named one of their songs "The Tarleks" and even got the real Herb Tarlek to appear in the video along with one of his infamous plaid polyester jackets.

THE RHEOSTATICS  ~  "THE TARLEKS";

Kino-Pravda; The 1920's Soviet Newsreels Of Dziga Vertov

Last year I wrote an article (which can be found here) about the series of silent "City Symphonies", cinema verite documentaries made in various cities in the twenties that used the urban setting as a canvas to portray the city in all it's bustling glory as a complex human story. The acknowledged masters of the genre were the German Walter Ruttman with his classic "Berlin; Symphony Of A Great City" (1927) and the Soviet Dziga Vertov with his "Man With A Movie Camera" (1929). Critics have hotly debated which film is better but often left unsaid is that whatever the similarities and differences between the two films, the massive differences between the two filmmakers were even greater and they coloured the different ways they approached the subject. Ruttman (who I also wrote about here) was a craftsman who had made his start as a maker of Dadaist Op Art art shorts and early animation while Vertov started out as a film writer and maker of Soviet propaganda newsreels. 


DZIGA VERTOV

Vertov (1896-1954, real name David Kaufman) worked with his cameraman brother Mikhail Kaufman (1897-1980), and edited by his wife Yelizaveta Svilova (1900-75). Vertov and his brother were part of a group of young Marxist documentary filmmakers who used documentary films to inspire the masses towards Revolution and rejected the very idea of non-fiction films as appropriate to tell such rousing real life stories. Like Derain and Mayer, Vertov started out in the 1910's as a writer of both fiction and non-fiction, including film and photography. After the Russian Revolution he was the editor of a film magazine who became fascinated about the possibilities of documentaries as a medium for spreading revolutionary consciousness. In this he was thinking along the same lines as Lenin and Trotsky who had long seen film as a propaganda tool. Although it is often not not fully recognized in Europe and America who when looking at the first generation (pre WW1) of film tend to focus almost exclusively on America, France and Italy, Tsarist Russia was an important centre of film production with a rich and popular catalogue of films covering a number of genres. Lenin (who in his pre-revolutionary career had been an aspiring pianist and writer) and Trotsky (another aspiring writer) quickly spotted the role film could take in reaching the masses with a dramatically presented message that would have more emotional impact than written the traditional pamphlets, newspapers and speeches, especially given that many of those masses were functionally illiterate and the sheer number of languages spoken in Russia. The resulting films were called "Agit-Prop" for "Agitate-Propagandize", itself a take on the Polish/German revolutionary Rosa Luxembourg's "Agitate, Educate, Organize" slogan. Film must not provide propaganda, it must also inspire and rouse the masses to action by portrayal of the regular man playing a role in creating the new workers state. As a film critic Vertog was disdainful of fictional films including those of Sergei Eisenstien whose "The Battleship Potemkin" he dismissed as phony and manipulative insisting only documentaries could present the truth. Starting in 1922 Vertov started a series called "Kino-Pravda" ("Film-Truth") which made a series of two dozen newsreel type shorts that showed aspects of Russian post-revolutionary society as one on the move, building a new world. He focused for the most part on workers and farmers rather than promoting a leadership cult to the extent that unlike later Soviet and Nazi films, although there would inevtably some focus on from Lenin paticularly after his death. Also unlike later Soviet and Fascist propaganda he even occasionally showed problems yet to be overcome including the poverty of the rural and urban poor albeit with the implication that such problems could and would be solved by hard work and the new leaders. A notable difference with the films of Ruttman, Charles Sheeler and Joris Ivens was that while they were focused on the form and function of machines, buildings, trains, boats etc, Vertov was more interested in the people or at least the society they represented. Vertov was also more willing to take the sort of flashy camera tricks used on occasion by Ruttman, Ivens and Derain and give them full rein for a more kinetic experience.

Ruttman was making a work of art while Vertrov on the other hand was making newsreels designed to promote the Revolution and specifically the Bolshevik faction of Lenin. His "Kino-Pravda" series of 23 shorts starting in 1922 were named after the Russian words for "Film-Truth" as well as not coincidentally using the name of the Bolshevik's official paper "Pravda" which had been published since 1911. These shorts used mostly authentic footage along with some staged scenes to tell the story of the successful revolution, a hopeful new society rebuilding, threats from within being crushed (in the form of the rival Socialist Revolutionary Party who are shown on trial), Lenin as a dynamic leader and later after his death as a beloved father figure.



These newsreels viewed in total show how Vertov devloped the kinetic and essentially humanist style that would animate his full length "Man With A Movie Camera". In this they are notably different from the rather bland newsreels made in America, France or the UK by the likes of Pathe at the same time with their stodgy posed shots of various political, military, sports or entertainment figures and flat location shots shot in predictable angles and edited in conventional ways. Unlike the mostly annonymous makers of western newsreels and educational films who were assembly line professionals and who worked to a standard template as quickly and efficiently as possible Vertov was a theorist with a willingness to experiment with his ideas for a more kinetic and involving style. Ironically for a time Vertov who worked under an authoritarian system had, at least for a time, more freedom to experiment than newsreel makers in the West who worked under the assembly line studio system.



The Kino-Pravda series of 24 newsreels ran from 1922 to 1925 at irregular intervals showing a mixture of political events along with a few more human interest stories. The time period began with the ending of the Russian Civil War, the war with Poland and the post war famine, continued through infighting with the Communist rivals the Socialist Revolutionary Party, their attempt to stage a coup and assassinate Lenin leading to the first Soviet Show trials which the series covers frequently. The series continues along to the death of Lenin and it's aftermath. The newsreels range in length from several minutes to a full reel although it's possible some episodes may be missing a few minutes. Episode 12 is missing completely. Due to the highly topical nature of some of the subjects the films are full of obscure political figures that nobody who hasn't made a detailed study of Revolutionary Soviet history could possibly expect to know.

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Episode 1. June 1922; The opening episode was shot when the USSR was still suffering under a devastating famine which Vertov shows with harshly realistic shots of starving children with the haunted, hopeless look we have become used to but which was still shocking in 1922. Not because major famines hadn't happened before because of course they had, but because there wasn't normally a film crew around. Vertov and his camera does not flinch but he does not dwell overly long either before moving to the next sequence where the riches of the Orthodox Church are shown being handed over, broken up and sold off to feed the hungry children who are then shown well fed and happy. Even religious Christians would find it hard to dismiss the imagery. There is also a Church official present to hand over the treasures. Next we have a flight of a transport plane which brings in some food then takes some officials on a flight over Moscow which gives Vertov and excuse for some fine arial shots of the city which indidentally looks pretty quiet. Note that the plane is clearly a German Junkers transport plane. The USSR actually had a civil relationship with their recent Great War foes Weimar Germany and post Ottoman Turkey who were among the first to recognize the USSR and maintain diplomatic and economic relations while their former Western allies refused to do either. This extended to cultural activities including film with films beiong exported back and forth and director Robert Weine ("The Cabinet Of Dr Caligari") directing his version of "Crime & Punishment" there. Finally we see a parade of pro-government workers.

2. 1922


Starts with a Party rally. A parade of officials, speeches being given to an open air meeting afterwards, food is served, a band plays and people dance, kids in costume dance, there are carnival rides. These happy scenes contrast vividly with the scenes of starvation and poverty in the first episode. The major political event of the year was the attempt by rivals the Socialist Revolutionary Party (AKA the SR's) to stage a coup against the Bolsheviks and assassinate Lenin which failed resulting in a series of trials. Here we see various SR members arrive in court surrounded by armed militia along with various officials, charges are read out.

3. June 1922

The trial of the SR's begins with more reading of charges, various officials mill about, a rally is held outside with more speeches and marches.

4. July 1 1922

The trials continue with more speeches. We shift gears, literally with a new fast car in Moscow that uses an aeroplane engine with a giant propeller that looks distinctly unsafe. Reportedly there were two of them and this was the start of a race to Sevastapol. After this bit of futuristic technology we see grain being delivered by run-down trucks and horse drawn wagons to be loaded on to barges. The grain is stored in locked warehouses protected by armed guards so while the famine is being dealt with it is evidently not over, at least outside the cities. Finally we journey to the Caucasus and Georgia to visit the vacation resorts with their crumbling castles and sub-tropical trees and sidewalk cafes.

5. July 7 1922

Vertov starts to become more inventive and playful with the title cards as this one opens with the title being shown on a newspaper being read by a man on a balcony. In another advance in editing this motif will also be used during the short to introduce different subjects. We start with showing Vasilij Jakovenko, the Commissar for Agriculture then we see plowing being done first with old horse drawn plows then heavy mechanical equipment. Progress! Next we are back in the Georgian resorts which include sanitoriums including for children which again contrasts with the images of child poverty and famine from episode one. More progress! Finally we are back in Moscow for a well attended harness horse race known as the first Red Derby. Still more progress! Peace & Prosperity awaits! Note that Jakovenko seems to have been a victim of the Stalin Purges of a decade later when scapegoats were needed to explain the later famines Stalin caused.  

6. July 18 1922

The opening goes further in breaking the fourth wall as a box containing a film reel labeled as being "Kino-Pravda 6" is opened and the reel is spooled into a projector and shown. Note that Vertov would make aggressive use of this framing device in his later full length "Man With A Movie Camera". We see a street scene with traffic and the aftermath of an accident with an overturned streetcar, factory workers at work, a bicycle race that turns into a motorcycle race and back again and finally units of the Red Army on maneuvers with new tanks all of which BTW are clearly direct copies of the hulking British Mark V and smaller French Renault tanks from the Great War. Note that while previously the Tsarist and Red Armies had armoured cars these were their first tanks. We also get a fly-over from a fairly ricketty biplane which already looks several years obsolete by Western standards. We also see an armoured train of the sort that saw action during the Russian Civil Wars.

7. July 25 1922

Back to the pro-forma title cards and more trial footage. Then we head out to the provinces with stops at a farm village in Siberia with a large house under construction, a train ride to scrounge in a mica pit mine, then down to Sochi in Crimea and another health spa with people enjoying the rocky beaches. Then we leave the USSR for the first time for a trip to Kabul with silk traders and a parade of elephants. After that rather medieval spectacle we move forward to contrast with a Mark V tank being used to assist in farming, then back to the mountains of the Caucasus with a rugged mountain road and tunnel and a small chapel. The timeline on this one is a little scattered.

8. August 15 1922;

To start we get a cold open with two men in a cafe placing a wager on the SR's trial. Then after the usual titlecard more trial footage including the verdict. Vertov shows the passage of time by using a montage with a manually sped up clock and pages torn from a calendar while people read the newspapers and doze off. The verdict is guilty BTW in case you were placing bets. In a nicely done transition we see men reading about the verdict while in a car and on a streetcar which allows for a change of topic to the more prosaic working on the streetcar tracks. We also see the remains of a crashed plane which seems more advanced than the one we saw flying overhead in episode 6. We close off with another tank being used in farming. Likewise this tank is a more modern model than the clunky monsters we saw in episode 6.

9. August 25 1922;

We return to the opening motif of showing a film projector. We see a conference of Orthodox Church Priests and Bishops. This is actually the first time we have seen any religious leaders since they handed over their valuables in episode one. More street scenes showing the interiors and engines of a streetcar along with various cars and trucks. We attend a horse race that includes betting including some obvious losers. A new movie camera is displayed. Machine shop workers are seen at work. An especially bulky projector with a generator is set up outside in the street as another party parade marches by.

10. September 3 1922;

A gathering for International Youth Day with parades, speeches and street theatre. Delegates gather for a group photo. A plane lands. We see some athletic events; A tennis match, various track & field events featuring men and women. These were the Soviet response to the Olympic Games as the USSR was barred from competing in those games until 1952. More street scenes and another streetcar accident. Mechanics work on a large engine for a new truck. We see a cross country motorcycle race.

11. October 5 1922;


The All Russian Congress Of Trade Unions meets. Various officials and delegates arrive. Cossacks do a ride-by and a military band marches. Actually a little surprising that this is the first time we've seen Cossacks. A confectionary factory is shown at work. A building catches fire and a fire brigade arrives. More factory scenes from a heavy machine shop. Komosol Day, a Party rally for kids happens with the usual marches and speeches. Troops are shown on maneuvers including infantry, cavalry, armoured cars and planes.          

13. October 1922 (Episode 12 is missing);


This episode is more than twice as long as usual as it's the fifth anniversary of the October Revolution celebrations with plenty of the usual marches and speeches, including one Trotsky but not from Lenin who by this point was incapacitated by a stroke. In fact we see Trotsky a few times here giving speeches, shaking hands and handing out medals apparently acting as Lenin's surrogate. Lenin is seen in some older footage. There are also the usual military parades, maneuvers, ride-bys and fly-bys which leads to more aerial shots of Moscow. There seems to be an exercise involving the use of gas. Much of the footage for this episode was clearly recycled from earlier episodes.      

14. 1923;


After some creative title cards that use Alexander Calder or Marcel Duchamp style mobiles we see a ship being launched and Kino-Pravda goes to America. We have the streets of New York, crowded restaurants, some dancers in a club, a spinning globe then back to the USSR and Petrograd where yet another Party Congress as the Comintern meets. You know what that means; more speeches by Trotsky, Radek, etc. More spinning garphics, another Party Congress, more speeches, more graphics one of which uses a swastika although to be fair in 1922 even though the Nazi Party existed in Germany it's unlikely Vertov knew who they were and it's almost certainly just a coincidental use of a graphic he liked the look of. We also get some footage of Lenin speaking although it's probably old footage as he had been incapacitated by a stroke by this point. More troops being reviewed, farmers at work, trains, factories, belching smokestacks and steel plants with happy workers and happy children. More Lenin, this is actually the first time we have really seen much of him but as we know he was seriously ill by this point the film is really covering for him. We also see Vertov using as a framing device the image of a cameraman busily cranking away. This is a device he would make use of in the later "Man With A Movie Camera".

15. 1923;


Delegates meet to discuss world peace. One of them appears to be Stalin and if so this is the first time we've seen him. Religious figures are mocked and icons are removed, see episode one again. More parades and speeches along with statues. Propaganda papers are fired out of a cannon. Winter sports with ice hockey and cross country ski racing. Sailors perform maneuvers on the ice. Troops parade on skis. Cavalry on maneuvers.  

16. 1923;


This one has an opening title card that was clearly added many years later. After some street scenes we have a scale model of the Red Square Palace and an arts & crafts exhibition. Next we have some sort of lottery and some artsy camera angles. The famine still hasn't been eliminated in the provinces as we see more suffering children although this time in a hospital getting care unlike in the first episode. Later we see them happily at play looking fit. More progress! More marching Red Army soldiers. Out of the blue we get footage from a film being shot by Sergei Eisenstein, "Dnevnik Glumova" with a nattily dressed cat burglar scales the walls of a castle, then jumps off and harlequin figures mug for the camera, scamper over a tank and engage in some dissolving camera tricks. We also see another large swastika for some reason. Vertova and Eisenstein would later came to dislike and criticize each other with Vertov dismissing the feature filmmaker's work as "artificial" and this George Melies style sequence is indeed rather jarring compared to the gritty realistic content of the rest of Vertov's work. We see a meeting of the Young Pioneers youth group well fed and busy at work and on parade. It's May Day so we get a flyover from a twin engine bi-plane and some more aerial footage and more parade footage including some elaborate floats. Somewhat more surprisingly we also get a fashion show, albeit a rather staid one.

17. Feb. 1924;


Opening of women working in the fields and waves of grain, no crop shortages here. Lev Kamanvev visits and is once again greeted by happy children and gives a speech. Working on a busy open pit mine. Trains and wagons full of produce. Men work on a lumber yard, more miners and farmers. Lenin dies.

18. 1924;


After a title card that uses a little Ruttman style animation we are in France where ascend the Eiffel Tower and see some birds eye views of Paris before our bird races back to Russia as the farmland of Ukraine rush by. Looking a little parched actually but that may be due to being in black & white. Next we get another auto roadrace and street scenes with people at a street market, riding a streetcar and reading the papers which are sold by cigarette smoking newsboys. More factory workers, miners and construction workers and more aerial shots. Reaction to Lenin's death with some speeches. A young couple with a newborn get some free clothes and food. More progress benefitting the workers in the new state! Finally some increasingly artsy shots of those happy workers among grinding factory wheels.

19. 1924;


We are on a train ride through the countryside which starts in the apparent summer then suddenly turns to winter as we cross a trestle bridge. We are in a resort probably in Northern Karelia (near Finland) where people are taking dips in the icy water, speed skating, cross country skiing, running dog and reindeer sleds and seal and bear hunting. We meet some traditional Inuit people. Back to a city where some sort of election is going on. Some winter street scenes. Since this is Russia it's actually a little surprising this is really the first time Vertov has actually shown us any winter scenes. Another cross country train ride and scenes of women at work at various jobs; farming, factory and office jobs. They work hard but they also get a say as they are shown having political meetings. More progress! Lenin is still dead and shown in his coffin followed by older footage of him speaking and greeting workers. We also see his widow Vera. Another woman is shown editing film. This is probably Vertov's wife Yelizaveta Svilova who would later be shown in much the same way in "Man With A Movie Camera".

20. 1924;


A Young Pioneers parade. A young mother shows off her baby and children all wearing Pioneers uniforms. More shots of the countryside and women working the farm. These farms are relatively prosperous, the people healthy and a far cry from the struggling desperate ones from earlier episodes. A celebration with folk dancing and more Pioneers parades. Another train ride showing the cultivated fields. People are hard at work sawing wood rails and plowing the fields when the Young pioneers march up and pitch in to help. Then a collective dinner is served and magazines are read. The Pioneers visit a zoo where they see a parade of various animals; elephants, bears, kangaroos, monkeys, seals, wolves, etc.

21. Feb. 1925;


On the first anniversary of his death this is the Lenin memorial episode with plenty of shots of Lenin giving speeches and meeting people and red Army troops on maneuvers to portray the Russian Civil War. We see happy people across the USSR, not only Russians but people from the Caucuses and Central Asian Muslim areas including a girl who happily throws off her headscarf. Mass rallies and parades along with modern farming and industry and trains recycling some footage we have already seen including as contrast the early scenes of famine and starvation. In the new Russia we have farms getting electricity for the first time. Moving on we are at Lenin's funeral as crowds pass by his coffin along with various officials including his widow Nadezhda Krupskaya, Trotsky, Kamenev and Stalin who we clearly see for the first time and who is also mentioned by name for the first time. Once again we see people from across the regions and ethnic groups of the USSR as we are told that hundreds of thousands of people attended the funeral. In an animated sequence we see a plutocrat laugh over Lenin's death only to be horrified as he is told the USSR is recognized by various nations, and the masses join the Communist Party. For some reason the animated plutocrat looks oddly like Lenin himself which is a little confusing and poor planning on Vertov's part. We get more parades and emotional crowds as a motange of Lenin speaking is superimposed over his tomb in Red Square. Finally we get more speeches from young and old and a train rides into the future.

22. 1925;


Another tribute to Lenin. More people file past his coffin. More parades and speeches including from his widow. A group of peasants come to Moscow for the first time by train for the funeral. They are fed in a soup kitchen and see red Square with Lenin's Tomb. They tour a display of agricultural improvements under Lenin. Trotsky speaking about world revolution and we see activists in India, China and Africa. Activists sing the "Internationale".

23. 1925;


Special episode about the new technology. A villager buys a new radio receiver and a tree is cut down to erect an antenna. After a charming little animated scene showing a cut-away building to show a radio transmitter set we get a longer series of schematics then scenes of technicians assembling and operating the radios sets some of which are quite large. As a program is broadcast we see various singers and musicians perform while people listen intently on earphones. Later we see a store selling radios and radios being mass produced.

24. 1926;


One of the later episodes of the series, assembled after Lenin's death serves as a compilation of "Kino-Pravda" episodes.The Soviet government was not slow to see the value of films as agit-propaganda and not only for domestic but also foreign audiences and that would certainly include the films of Vertov. Accordingly excerpts of the "Kino-Pravda" series would be edited together with added subtitles in different languages for export. This last one was made for English speakers and includes excerpts about; Repairing the Moscow Trolley line, using tanks for construction and farm work, the trials of the Socialist Revolutionaries, more street scenes, peasants joining communes, a children's hospital, combatting famine in the rural areas, setting up portable movie projectors.

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Although the Kino-Pravda series is better known as it can be used to show Vertov trying out some visual themes he would later use in "Man With A Movie Camera" this was actually his second newsreel series with his first starting in 1918 just after the Bolsheviks seized power. This series was called "Kino Week" thus also debuting Vertov's use of the name "Kino". Of the original twenty four shorts in the series only eight remain.

Week 1 - Mar 20 1918;


Marching wokers, Lenin, Trotsky reviews Red Army troops, cavalry and sailors. Soviet and German troops and officals are shown on the border as peace negotions are carried out to end Russia's involvement in WW1. More speeches from now forgotten figures. A street scene showing market day with various vendors.

Week 3 - June 3 1918 (week two is missing);


A collection of unrelated scenes with various officials, women working on a farm, a soup kitchen distibutes food, a naval officer, wounded soldiers return from the front, a train station, a tug of war contest.

Week 4 - June 25 1918;


More obscure officials, construction workers restoring an old building, new recruits get physicals, St Petersburg city scenes, people, apparently once respectable are now selling possesions on the street.

Week 5 - July 2 1918;


Still more officials, street scenes with beggars and lineups, ships at the docks, more dispossed people milling about.

Week 21 - October 22 1918 (weeks 6 - 20 are missing);


A Moscow street scene with people milling about a government building, officials outside a train try out a new automobile which is designed to run along the train tracks although it drives pretty slowly, a river bank in a rural area with an old rope & pully ferry, a larger river paddlewheeler, some cavalry ride in review, army officers arrive by train.

Week 22 - October 29 1918;


Moscow, footage of revolutionaires Lenin and Balbanov, street scenes, with people lining up for food and a busy market, at the train station with troops gathering to be reviewed and hear a speech from Trotsky. At a different city (probably in Ukraine) German troops are shown marching in the street as they leave occupied territory.

Week 23 - November 5 1918;


Street scene; Officials and troops mill about smoking, another speech from an unknown official, troops march by along with a funeral cortage, newspapers are handed out to men lined up outside a train, we see the outside of some sort of cabaret theatre advertising a show but we do not go inside, nurses gather outside a rural hospital.

Week 24 - November 19 1918;


Moscow, troops and civilians mill about in the street, the troops gaather for review and speeches by various officials including Yakov Sverdlov (one of Lenin's most trusted lieutenants and possible sucessor if he hadn't died in the 1919 Pandemic) and Lev Kamenev (another top leader and possible successor, later killed by Stalin), statues are unveiled, we see Russian and German troops fraternizing at what appears to be a POW camp.

Week 25 - November 26 1918;


Moscow; More statues are unveiled, another speech from Kamenev, more troops marching, more speeches.

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These newsreels show that for his first efforts Vertov is a competent but conventional newsreel filmmaker but lacks any of the flair, playfulness and willingness to experiment that begins to emerge in the "Kino-Pravda" series. He had not yet found his own style. They also may show the limitations of propaganda filmmaking as there are really only a few themes and visuals shown over the course of the series that are simply repeated but which are not inherently very interesting visually; there are plenty of parades, troops on review, statues and speeches given mostly by now forgotten officials along with some street scenes. Unlike the later work of Vertov (and Ruttmann) the subjects are fully aware of the camera and often stand around awkwardly staring at the camera. This entire series could probably have been edited down to two reels, at least what we have left, although the missing episodes are probably little different. It's possible that Vertov's choices in subject matter were dictated by the regime who also wanted the repetition to drive home it's message. It's also evident that if you live in an authoritarian system you had better enjoy parades, rallies, flags and speeches because you are going to be seeing a lot of them.

Finally we have another short possibly filmed by Vertov several years later.

"MAXIM GORKY";


We know they were filmed later as this one features the writer and poet Maxim Gorky who spent the twenties in exile in Europe after siding with the Socialist Revolutionaries, opposing their trials and criticizing Lenin and Trotsky. Highly popular he would be invited back the USSR by Stalin in 1931 after he reconciled and he would become a public supporter of the regime until he died in 1936 so this footage must have been shot within that fairly narrow window. Additionally for a few reasons the USSR was slow in making the changeover to talkies and were still making silent films by the mid thirties.

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Speaking of playfulness and experimentation, Vertov also used animation for a couple of propaganda shorts. Unlike Walter Ruttman's animation experiments which came out of the Dada art scene and were abstract, dreamlike and surreal, Vertov's were conventional and realistic animation of the time done with some skill albeit not quite up to the level of American animators like Winsor MCay (already well known as the first to make full use of animation), and the just starting out Walt Disney and the Fleischer Brothers, lacking their fluidity of motion and expressive faces. It is unknown who did the actual animation for these as Vertov himself simply did the production and possibly some editing.  



Parts of this one had appeared in Kino-Pravda episode 21 and are about the international success and growth of Communist Party even in the aftermath of Lenin's death while the second longer part is specifically about early farm collective and worker collective programs.

"SOVIET TOYS";


Vertov considered himself a good Socialist Realist and rejected any of the abstract art schools such as Expressionism, Dada or Surrealism but there is no other way to describe this weird cartoon than Surreal. It starts out conventionally enough with a group of children's toys under the Christmas tree acting out political stereotypes. A greedy Capitalist stuffing his face at dinner, his shifty eyes making him look even more creepy. The Capitalist becomes so bloated that he throws up then falls over and can't get up. Still he calls for women to amuse him and one duly arrives and dances for him but then things become more hallucianatory as the prostitute also gets consumed by his ever growing stomach. Then a Worker arrives and laughs as the Capitalist briefly turns into a pig. Two church bishops arrive but instead of chiding the Capitalist for his decadence they bow to him and bicker with each other. The Worker, finding no support from the Church attempts to get the Capitalist to give up some of the money fail as he literally tries to carve it out of him with giant scissors but he is not strong enough. Then a Farmer arrives and after suggesting they work together against the Capitalist the two join together (literally) to break the Capitalist open like a pinata and money leaks out and into the people's bank. Eventually the Red Army arrives (along with a cameraman from Vertov's studio) and several soldiers join together (again literally) to form and tree upon witch the Capitalist, Bishops and Prostitute are strung up, although she is merely punished while the men are lynched. The tree then turns into a Christmas tree (it's Christmas remember) and the strip ends with and ad for Vertov's studio. If this was made with kids in mind they must have been very confused. These were the only experiments of this type attempted by Vertov and he thereafter stuck with his Realist documentary style that would lead to "Man With A Movie Camera" by the end of the decade.

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If we are going to take into account Ruttmann's later work for the Nazis in judging his work then we must also do the same with Vertov. Just as hindsight places Ruttmann's "Berlin" in the context of a society on the brink of collapse, praise for the vibrant and energetic society and happy workers Vertov's films show can not be seen without the hindsight that we are seeing a society heading into a complete totalitarian police state, something Vertov is an active cheerleader for. To be fair to Vertov these films were made from 1922 to 1925 or 26 with "Man With A Movie Camera" being made in 1929 and at that time the full repression of Stalin had not yet happened. In the 1920's one could still believe that the worst excesses of the Revolution were over. 1922 had seen eight years of war, revolution, civil war, terror and famine but by 1929 it was just possible to believe that the future was indeed bright; there was peace, the economy had picked up and Soviet society was visibly on the move. That was indeed the sincere position most (but certainly not all) Marxists took at the time both in the Soviet Union and abroad. Lenin had died in 1924 and Stalin had taken over but he had done so peacefully and his power was not yet absolute. The horrors of Stalinism, the purges and show trials, more famines, the Holodomor in Ukraine, ethnic cleansing of Tartars and other groups, mass arrests and terror, were still in a future few could yet see. Vertov's films do actually show a few muted criticisms of the Soviet government with scenes of extreme poverty and famine in some of the "Kino-Pravda" shorts and a few fleeting views of what seem to be homeless men in "Man With A Movie" camera albeit this is done within that larger context of the theme that the dynamic new Soviet government and it's bold leader Lenin are fixing the problems. Lenin was actually not opposed to all criticism and debate as long as it was deemed "constructive" and "positive" and would probably not have minded this, but under Stalin any such critiques, however veiled, would not be allowed. Vertov can be somewhat excused from predicting, much less showing any of the horrors of the regime but only somewhat, he was still an enthusiastic propagandist for a regime that even under Lenin was hardly free and had committed many crimes and atrocities which Vertov ignores and there is nothing to indicate that even privately he expressed any doubts. Under Stalin he would later make films like "Enthusiasm" that showed he is still a cheerleader for the by now clearly Stalinist regime. Like Rutmann under the Nazis he would have had little choice in the matter whatever their private thoughts but if the dark shadow of the Nazi regime is in hindsight seen to hang over "Berlin" and if Ruttmann's later propaganda work is to be counted against him than Vertov must be held to the same standard. After this film Vertov and his brother had a falling out and did not work together again although Vertov would continue to make films for a while until his flashy style fell afoul to the increasingly stodgy censors of the Stalinist era and he ended up back where he started as a low profile editor of newsreels dying in 1954 aged only 58, outliving Stalin by a year. His brother Mikhail dropped out of film and became a photographer, dying in 1980. Vertov's wife and editor Yelizaveta Svilova continued to work with Vertov but retired from film after his death to concentrate on assembling his various writings. She died in 1975.

Halloween/Yom Kippur Special - "The Dybbuk"; A Yiddish Horror Film

In the early years of film from the silent era to the early talkies there were the major powers; the United States, France, Russia, Germany, Italy, maybe Britain plus Sweden and Denmark, the film output of which is well known and documented. Then there's the second rank of smaller powers, largely outside the West, usually smaller and/or less wealthy, such as China and Japan, India, some Latin American countries and countries in Eastern Europe including Finland and the Baltics (which I wrote about last month), Romania and Greece that made some interesting films that may have gone unnoticed in the outside world but offer a look at different cultures adapting to the new medium. Among these are the Yiddish films mostly made in Russia in the twenties and Poland in the thirties.

Setting aside the "Assimilated" who may have lived in Jewish neighbourhoods but otherwise were fully integrated into the larger non-Jewish societies in which they lived, speaking the local languages (German, French, English), doing business and attending the same theatres as Gentiles, the Jewish communities in Europe fell into two categories; the Ghetto, neighbourhoods in large cities, and the Shtetl, farm villages in rural areas. The population in the Ghettos ranged from ultra Orthodox Hasidic who never left the area and barely interacted with outsiders to the more secular who had business, political, personal and artistic relations with the larger gentile society while the Shtetl were Orthodox, conservative and insular. Both groups used Yiddish as their main language day-to-day if not exclusively and this was reflected in their theatres, media and music. From the mid-nineteenth to mid-twentieth centuries virtually every mid-to-large city in central Europe and North America had at least one large Yiddish theatre holding regular programs of plays, comedies and musicals entirely in Yiddish with big and loyal audiences. In North America a circuit of Yiddish theatres ran separate from the regular vaudeville circuit with the names such as the Marx Bros, Ritz Bros, Edward G Robinson (real name Emanuel Goldenberg), Paul Muni (Fredrick Meirer Weisenfreund), George Gershwin (Jacob Gershvin), Al Jolson (Asa Yoelson) and Eddie Cantor (Isadore Itzkowitz) getting their start in Yiddish theatre before crossing over to Vaudeville, Broadway and Hollywood. However when a Yiddish film industry began it would happen in Europe, which had a less integrated society and a smaller film industry. A small but quite active Yiddish film industry sprang up, originally centered in Russia which had a large European Jewish community, both Ghetto and Shtetls combined but after the Great War and Russian Revolution much of the action moved to the by then independent Poland which had the largest Jewish population in Europe outside the USSR.


DYBBUK POSTER

The vast majority of the plays shown in Yiddish theatres were fairly lighthearted fare being various comedies, romances and musicals dealing with life either in the urban Ghetto or small town Shtetl and early Yiddish films would continue this tradition with the first silents being comedies of various types. The most important of which were "Jewish Luck" (Yiddish name "Idishe Glikn") made in Russia in 1925 about a petty dreamer with various get rich quick schemes which was adopted from a play written by Sholem Aleichem who also wrote the original "Fiddler On The Roof" and "Laughter Through Tears" (AKA "Durkh Trennan", 1928) about a boy trying to find ways to support his family. Both films are still extant with the latter film in a version that was clumsily dubbed after sound films came in a few years later.

While the bulk of these films seem pretty similar in consisting mostly of gentle comedies and musicals one film was notable for its darker and more mystical themes and more artistic visuals influenced by German Expressionism even leaving it be be considered the first (and last) Yiddish supernatural horror film; "The Dybbuk" in 1937. The title character of "The Dybbuk" was a creature from Jewish mythology who was a shape-shifting spirit who could take possession of a human body. The dybbuk was a fairly obscure figure until popularized by a modern Russian/Jewish writer.


DYBBUK POSTER

Shloyme Zaynvi Rapoport (1863-1920) who often wrote under the name S Ansky was born in Russia where he was busy as a writer, literary critic and folklorist writing in both Russian and Yiddish. He was also a member of the radical Socialist Revolutionary Party who were rivals of the Bolsheviks and like many other radicals he spent much of the 1900's in exile (including Lenin, Stalin and Trotsky) in France and Switzerland where he continued to write articles and edit publications in Russian, Yiddish and French. He returned to Russia after the abortive 1905 Revolution after getting a pardon (as he was in exile and not directly involved) and returned to writing and lecturing. His fiction works covered a range of subjects from novels and plays about traditional Yiddish subjects and settings to modern plays (covertly published) that advocated for Marxist revolution. "The Dybbuk" was written in 1913 as a play and was not his only work dealing with the supernatural (he also wrote another play and some poems based on similar themes sometimes referred to as Yiddish Gothic) but it was not exactly representative of the bulk of his voluminous writings much of which was either scholarly or revolutionary. It was, however his most successful and influential play being staged in Russia as well as other parts of Europe and even making it's way to America. However he would not live to see much of this success as the Great War intervened.


SHLOYME RAPOPORT (Alias S ANSKY)

Although his play had been written in 1913 it had not yet been actually staged having been delayed by the war until 1917 when it was scheduled to be performed only to have it's debut delayed once again by the chaos of the Russian Revolution and Civil War. In the first phase of the 1917 Russian Revolution, which he of course supported, he was elected to the first Russian Assembly as a representative of the Socialist Revolutionaries but after the Bolshevik takeover later that year he would flee first to the now independent Lithuania then Poland where he resumed his writing and trying to get his play staged before dying suddenly of a heart attack in 1920 aged only 57. Only months after his death would his play finally be staged, first in Warsaw and then in the Soviet Union in 1922. The first film based on the play would be produced in 1925 in the USSR (now lost) with the classic version made in Poland in 1937 by which time sound films had arrived to Poland.


THE ORIGINAL 1920 POLISH PLAY

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"THE DYBBUK" (1937);


Directed by Michal Waszynski
From the play by Shloyme Zaynvi Rapoport as "S. Ansky"

CAST;
Mojzesz Lipman ~ Sender Brynicer Ben Henie
Lili Liliana ~ Leah Sender
Leon Liebgold ~ Channon Ben Nisan
Gerszon Lemberger ~ Nisan Ben Rifke (father of Chanan)
Ajzyk Samberg ~ Meszulach The Messenger (or Seer)
Abraham Morewski ~ Rabbi Azeriel Ben Hodos
Dina Halprin ~ Aunt Frade
Samuel Landau ~ Zalman the Matchmaker
Max Bozyk ~ Nute

Plot synopsis (spoiler alert);
Set in the shtetl of Brinitz in 1800's Russian Pale of Settlement (the area where Jews were largely restricted to, stretching from parts of eastern Lithuania, Poland, Ukraine and western Russia) two friends Sender a Rabbi and Nisan a fisherman make a vow that the children their wives are expecting will eventually marry. They are interrupted by Meszulach, a dark and mysterious travelling seer who warns them against making promises that bind future generations. In the event Sender's wife dies giving birth to their daughter Leah, and at the same time Nisan drowns in a storm at the moment his wife gives birth to their son Channon. Eighteen years later Sender becomes a rich but miserly rabbi, and one day Channon arrives there as a poor yeshiva student to study and Sender offers him lodging while both men are unaware of their connection. Channon has been followed by the Meszulach who appears and fades away is if by magic. He introduces Channon to Sender but does not reveal their secret past to either man. Leah and Channon fall in love, but keep this a secret knowing that Sender will not agree to marriage because of his lack of wealth. Leah shows Channon a grave righ in the town square and tells him it is for a young couple who were murdered on their wedding day and the town center is where wedding recptions so that they may honour the young lovers. Sender tries to make a deal with Zamlan the Matchmaker to find Leah a suitable rich husband with Nachman for his son Menasze but he drives too hard of a dowry bargain and returns home empty handed except for some cattle he bought from Nachman. He finds Leahs singing a song that had only been known by his old friend Nisan. When he asks where she learned the song she tells him she learned it from Chammon whose father had drowned and Sender then realizes Chammon must be the lost son of Nisan to whom he vowed to wed his daughter. As he ponders this Zalman the matchmaker runs in and tells him that Nachman has agreed to his dowry terms and the marriage can go ahead. Sender disregards his vow to Nisan and agrees to the marriage of Leah and Menasze.    



Channon obsessively studies the Kabbalah and attempts to practice magic to stop the marriage and win Leah's hand. When he hears that Sender has arranged Leah's marriage to a rich man's son, he does a rite and calls on Satan to help him but he's struck dead. His friend Nute wanted to warn him but is told by Meszulach that Channon must be allowed to find his own way. After Chammon is buried Leah visits his grave where she is met by Meszulach who tells her about the Dybbuk spirit Chammon had invoked but she does not believe him and prays for him to return. During a bridal celebration dance Leah has a vision of the undead spirit of Chammon who dances with her. As the long wedding ceremony goes on Chammon's spirit rises from the cemetery. Leah breaks away from the wedding vow and throws herself on the grave of the lost lovers in the town square and calls upon Chammon to rescue her. As it starts to rain Meszulach announces that she has been possessed by the Dybbuk. The next day Sender and her Aunt take her to a Rabbinical Council in Miropol for advice. Meszulach is already there and he denounces Sender for his greed and selfishness. The head Rabbi Azeriel also blames Sender who admits he has broken his vow to Nisan. Azeriel convenes a Rabbinical trial in which Senders is found guilty of breaking his vow to Nisan and after accepting judgement is forgiven any punishment allowing the wedding of his daughter to go ahead after Azeriel declares the vow voided. However Meszulach who has attended the trial announces that Nisan does not accept the verdict and the Dybbuk has not departed from Leah's body. Azeriel agrees to perform an exorcism to cast out the Dybbuk and after a ceremony in the Temple she collapses and Azeriel declares the Dybbuk has been exorcised and leaves along with his Rabbis and Sender leaving Leah alone in the Temple. She awakens to Chammon's voice calling to her telling her he has left her body but calls her to join him in the afterlife as his bride. She agrees and collapses on the altar where she is soon found dead by Sender. Meszulach witnessing this declares judgement has been rendered and blows out a candle as the wind blows closed the pages of a holy book. Finis.



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This film stands out from the usual musical and comedy fare of Yiddish films not only in its supernatural and horror themes but also in its artistic ambitions with obvious influences taken from German Expressionism. This can clearly be seen in the hallucinogenic bridal dance scene where the Dybbuk takes the form of Death and dances with Leah. But there are other signs of Expressionist influence particularly in the sets. The town square conjures up the ghetto in Paul Wegener's classic "Der Golem" (itself based on another Jewish mythical creature) if less ramshackle and cluttered while the cemetery, with it's ricketty headstones, all of which appear to be crooked, and the large headstone in the center of town reminds one of the cemeteries in "The Student Of Prague" (1913 with Wegener again and 1926 with Conrad Veidt) and FW Murnau's "Nosferatu". These sets are clearly artificial indoor sets as was standard in the early German Expressionist film although there are scenes on the road that are outdoor shots. The film doesn't make excessive use of Expressionist tropes of shadows, isolated pools of light and stairways going nowhere aside from the conjuring scene which does bring to mind Murnau's "Faust" (1926). Some of the acting employs exaggerated Expressionist gestures, especially among the extras and crowd scenes of various figures standing around staring wide-eyed and open mouthed and during the well edited back-and-forth action during the conjuring scene as a dance is going on while we see a fine shot of Sender sitting all alone and imperious as if on a throne but surrounded by darkness.



Director Michal Waszynski came about his Expressionist influences honestly as he had started out as an assistant director to none other than FW Murnau. Later he would return to a by then independent Poland and become the most prolific film maker in Poland with over thirty films to his credit. In fact he was so ubiquitous that it was estimated, not entirely in jest, that he worked on fully a quarter of the films made in pre WW2 Poland. Ironically, although secular Jewish by heritage with a good working knowledge of Jewish traditions and the Yiddish language by the time of this most classic of Jewish films was made in 1937 he had actually become a Catholic convert. As for Expressionist influences however it's notable that in the surviving stills from the 1920's stage play suggest that it was already seen as an Expressionist presentation and one must remember that Expressionism had started out as a theater movement before graduating to the screen and such figures as FW Muranu himself and started in the theater as had Paul Wegener and Conrad Veidt among others.


SCENE FROM THE 1920'S STAGE VERSION

This film and play are sometimes somewhat facetiously referred as the only examples of a genre called Yiddish Gothic but they could also be termed Yiddish Expressionism. Speaking of Gothic it's no doubt a coincidence but the theme of a girl being possessed by a demon would be revisited in 1973 classic "The Exorcist", however it's worth noting that the latter film made in the cynical seventies actually has the more positive ending as the demon is cast out and the girl is saved while in the "Dybbuk" the girl dies. On the other hand it was also a fate she chose rather than be saddled in a marriage arranged by her father for clear mercenary reasons to a man she (or for that matter the viewer) does not even know.  



One obvious difference between this film and German Expressionism is it's frequent musical numbers. This is partly because German Expressionism as a film genre (as opposed to it's stage version) was of course a silent film genre but it's also a byproduct of the Yiddish Theatre where musicals were not only popular but ubiquitous much like Bollywood today and audiences would expect music as a matter of course. In the event there are more than a half dozen musical numbers in the film depending on how you want to count them however almost all of them are done in context, as in the song is something the characters would actually be doing such as the wedding dances, religious songs or women singing while they work unlike in Hollywood or Bollywood musicals where musical numbers stop the action while characters break out in song or a big production number then snap back and return to the script which in this case helps to maintain the film's moody and fantastical atmosphere. This dreamlike feel is also enhanced by it's portraying a culture and world very foreign to most modern viewers although it would obviously have been less so to some of its original audience.    


COURTYARD SET FROM THE 1920'S PLAY

While director Michal Waszynski did have plenty of worthwhile experience as well as an artistic and aesthetic vision the film is not without its flaws. Like many early talkies it's slow moving in getting to it's climax, spends a lot of time with characters standing around talking and probably could have done with some more judicious editing. The many musical numbers also slow things down somewhat. The acting is uneven with some cast members (who mostly came from the Yiddish theatre world) notably Lili Liliana (Leah), Leon Liebgold (Channon), Mojzesz Lipman (Sender) and Abraham Morewski (Azeriel) doing perfectly credible jobs while others such as Ajzyk Samberg (Meszulach) and some of the extras, being stiff and wooden or awkward. This is also common in the early Hollywood talkies.


INTERIOR SET FROM THE 1920's PLAY

Essentially this film resembles the films made in the first couple years of the sound era in Hollywood from about 1929 to 1931. It's worth remembering that sound films came to Eastern Europe a few years later than in Hollywood or the large nations of Western Europe meaning filmmakers there would need a couple years to catch up to the new methods and figure out how to direct and tell stories in the new medium so even though it was made in 1937 by Hollywood standards it should probably be seen as roughly equal to a film of about 1931 or 32 which is the timeframe of the classic "Dracula" or the German film "M".



For a film made in Poland with a Jewish cast just before the Nazis came one might naturally fear about the ultimate fates of it's director and cast but somewhat miraculously most of them managed to avoid the Holocaust. Director Waszynski was in Poland when the Germans invaded but he quickly fled east and ended up in the zone occupied by the Soviets to whom he quickly offered his services as a filmmaker and they, always quick to recognize the importance of film as agit-prop put him to work as a theatre director. Before he had the chance to actually make any films for them however the Nazis invaded the USSR and he took the opportunity to escape and join up with the Free Polish Army in the west who were opposed to the Soviets where he would make a film documentary about their fighting in the invasion of Italy. Of course the Free Poles would lose out to the Soviets and he would never return home but ever the survivor he made his way to Italy and eventually Hollywood where he would carry on a successful career as a producer on such major productions as "The Quiet American" (1958), "El Cid" (1961) and "The Fall Of The Roman Empire" (1964) before dying of a sudden heart attack in 1968 aged 60. Lili Liliana (Leah) and Leon Liebgold (Chammon) would actually become a married couple and were touring in America when the war started and they would stay there working mostly in the Yiddish theatre scene with Lili dying in 1989 at the age of 76 while Liebgold would serve in the US Army then also return to the stage where both would have respected careers until he died in 1993 aged 83. They were buried in New York, far from their native Poland but together as in the film.


MICHAL WASZYNSKI & LILI LIANNA

Abraham Morewski (Azreiel) survived the war in the Soviet Union to afterwards return to Poland where he returned to the stage becoming an award winning actor and writer dying in 1964. Mojzesz Lipman (Sender) also survived and returned to Poland where he worked as a writer director at least until 1948 when he apparently retired and dropped out of sight. Dina Halprin (Aunt Frade) would also end up in New York where she would have her own respected stage career, dying in 1989. Max Bozyk (Chammon's friend Nute) was yet another who ended up in New York. He had also appeared in two other important Yiddish films "Yidl With His Fiddle" (1936) and "Klies Chaf" (AKA "The Vow" or "A Rabbi's Power", 1937) and would continue his career in Argentina and New York where he died in 1970. Inevitably however some where not so lucky. Samuel Landau (Zalman the Matchmaker) had been acting in film since 1913 including in the same other two films as Bozyk. Trapped in the Warsaw Ghetto he would continue to perform but there would be no escape from the Ghetto where he died in 1942. Ajzyk Samberg (Meszulach the Seer) was caught up by the Nazis and transported to a concentration camp where he reportedly also put on performances for the other inmates until he was murdered by the Nazis in 1943.    



NOTE; The version of this film that most people are familiar with, and the one currently available on Youtube and the Internet Archive, is taken from an old print from the 30's or 40's which is very poor quality both visually and audibly (although it does have English subtitles clearly added around the time of release presumably for a limited American showing) which has given a mistaken impression that this film was more crude than was actually the case at the time of release. But I recently stumbled on a version which has been restored to pristine visual condition and makes it clear that this film was up to contemporary standards of Hollywood and Western Europe so I've uploaded it and it can now be viewed as the filmmakers intended in all its Yiddish Gothic glory. This must be a seperate print from the other as the contemporary English subtitles are gone although someone has added new Spanish subtitles. If you can't pick your way through the Spanish I suggest watching the film twice as I did, once using the poor quality print with English subtiles to get the story and again using the better quality print to see the full visual clarity.  

 

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The status of "The Dybbuk" as the greatest Yiddish film meant it would inevitably be rediscovered and remade and it would eventually be done in English as a made for TV production directed by no less a name than Sidney Lumet.

"THE DYBBUK" (1960);


Directed by Sidney Lumet
CAST;
Theodor Bikel ~ Sender
Carol Lawrence ~ Leah Sender
Michael Tolan ~ Channon
Vincent Gardenia ~ Nissen
Ludwig Donath ~ Rabbi Azriel
Milton Selzer ~ Meszulach the Seer
Sylvia Davis ~ Aunt Frade

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This was done for a TV series called "Play Of The Week", one of the many anthology shows in the early days of TV with this one having a more artistic bent which included plays by Ibsen, Ben Jonson, Truman Capote, Arch Obler and Mel Brooks. Sidney Lumet had by this time already been nominated for a Oscar for "12 Angry Men" (1957) and as he points out in the intro his father had acted in a stage version in the 1930's so he was no doubt serious and treated this as a work of literature rather than a film. While the 1937 film had influnces from German Expresionism and Yiddish musicals which makes for an unique film Lumet considered himself a Realist who reject such fantasy worlds and this version is simply a stage version which happens to be filmed. It is thus very stagebound with a few spartan sets, all indoors, that have no paticular style, it is also very slow moving. While the 1937 film had some slow patches this one is downright glacial and frankly boring with most of the time taken up by characters standing or sitting around talking. The 1937 film, while not exactly a musical, did have several musical numbers as was was typical of Yiddish theatre at the time while the 1960 version is largely without music which is a little ironic since Lumet himself mentions the importance of music to the culture in his intro. The play clocks in at two hours which was a long time for a TV show in 1960 which also shows how seriously this project was taken but it's really too long. The dialogue is realistic and well acted with a cast made up of prominant stage actors. Theadore Bikel was a respected actor and Carol Lawrence having been nominated for a Tony for "West Side Story" (1957). Also along was a then young character actor Vincent Gardenia. Note while Lumet and most of the cast were Jewish, Lawrence and Gardenia were actually Italian Americans. This 1960's version largely dispenses with the supernatural/occult themes of the 1937 version which by 1960 were probably seen by the educated worldly Lumet and a possible audience as being a little undignified and more suited to a B-Movie horror flick and a distraction from Lumet's attempt to present a literate and humanized portrayal of a culture that he obviously respected to the larger modern secular gentile audience. Ironically dispensing with the Expressionsit smoke & ghostly spirits of the 1937 version means that the departed spirit of Nisan is never actually seen and is instead played by the dissembodied voice of Vincent Gardenia and Carol Lawrence has to play her possession scenes by spinning around, mouth agape with her hands waving in the air before collapsing in a heap both of which might have worked on a small stage but looks inadvertantly silly here. The TV version also lackes entirely the moody Gothic/Expressionist atmospherics of the 1937 film which might have seemed a little corny in 1960 but have dated better than Lumet's wordy melodramatic realism at least in this case. The 1960 version is sincere, has some good dialogue, is well acted and has historical value as being possibly the first portrait of Hasidic culture on mainstream American TV but as a viewing experience it can be safely missed and the 1937 version is vastly better and far more watchable.



As an odd footnote the original play and films were popular enough that they inspired a puppet show version which, assuming it were filmed, has sadly not survived aside from a poster and an intriguing still.



1930's PUPPET SHOW VERSION

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Besides the 1937 film there was a previous Yiddish film which utilized some of the same themes from the original Rappaport's 1922 play as a silent film made in Poland in 1924.

"TKIES-KAF" (AKA "THE VOW" or "A Vilna Legend" or "The Rabbi's Power", 1924);


Directed by Zygmunt Turkow
From a play by Peretz Hirschbein

CAST;
Zygmunt Turkow ~ Elijah The Prophet
Ida Kaminska ~ Rachel Kornberg
Esther-Rokhi Kaminska ~ Mrs Kornberg
Simcha Balanoff ~ Jacob Mandel
Moshe Litman ~ Baruch Mandel
Lev Mogilov ~ Schmuhl Levine
Henryk Tarlo ~ Levine Jr
Adam Domb ~ Chaym Kornberg
David Ledermen ~ Matchmaker
Jonas Turkow ~ Yeshiva Student
Joseph Buloff ~ The Narrator

Plot Synopsis (Spoiler Alert); In the turn of the century Lithuanian capital of Vilna a group of Hasidic men gather in a tavern. One of them proceeds to tell a story about Elijah, a prophet who wanders from place to place taking the disguises of various figures to influence the affairs of men. In the story Elija comes to Vilna in the form of a wandering beggar. He finds a local Rabbi who is giving advice to the locals. Two of his visitors, merchants Chaym Kronberg and Baruch Mandel are married but childless and the Rabi assures them they will have children when God wills it and they leave. Chaym and Baruch are friends and they share their troubles making a vow that if they do have a son and daughter they will marry them to each other. Elijah witnesses this vow although the two men do not know who he is. Twenty years later Chayam has had a daughter and Baruch a son, however they have lost contact as Mandel has moved away to a town in the country while Kronberg stayed in Vilna where his now poor family are struggling, we learn that Chaym has since died and his ailing wife and daughter have been reduced to selling fruit in the street, taking in washing and working as seamstresses. The couple also had a son who went off to war. Before he died Chaym made a loan to a Russian General by taking valuable jewels as collateral and hiding them in a secret place for safekeeping. One day a telegram arrives informing the family that their son has died in action and after reading the telegram Chaym has a heart attack and dies as well. When the General returns to reclaim his jewels Mrs Kronberg does not know where Chaym had hidden them and to repay the losses she must sell the home and business to another wealthy merchant, Schmuhl Levine thus reducing the family to poverty. Meanwhile Baruch Mandel is a wealthy merchant living in another town and is preparing to send his son Jacob off to Yeshiva school in the city to study. Elijah, still in the disguise of a wandering holy prophet visits and when Baruch asks his advice as to where he should send his son to live within the city he suggests Schmuhl Levine and Baruch agrees. Jacob arrives in Vilna and finds Levine who invites him to stay with his family which includes his own son who is of similar age. Jacob however is sober, religious and studious while Levine's son is worldly, secular, dresses in expensive clothes and likes to drink and smoke. Jacob sees Rachel who he does not know and who lives nearby in a small apartment across a courtyard with her sick mother. As Jacob studies in his room while Rachel and her mother are working on their sewing an old Beggar appears in the courtyard and begins singing for alms. Rachel and Jabob both hear him and toss him some coins. The Beggar blesses them and then vanishes into thin air. Later Jacob is studying at Yeshiva school Rachel and her mother arrive selling apples. Jacob and other students are smitten with Rachel who gives them free apples when they can not afford to pay. Jacob becomes obsessed with Rachel and can not focus on his studies. He dreams and begins to have visions. First as himself and Rachel together in Biblical times. Next two of his school friends come in and act as good and evil spirits. The evil one tempts him by taking him to a burlesque show while the good one takes him to the cemetery where they visit the tomb of the great Ribi of Vilna where he is then locked in. Jacob then wakes up and hallucinates again before returning to his room and going to bed sick. Meanwhile Rachel goes to sell fruit to Schmuhl Levine who is now living in their old house and who has just stumbled on to the Chaym's old hidden cache of jewels. When Rachel shows up Levine, who is much older than Rachel, makes a pass at her and she flees as his son enters. Later Levine Jr has a party and as the merriment carries on Jacob arrives and is invited to stay and does so, captivated by the women there he shyly removes his Hasidic hat. Afterwards Levine Jr gives him a makeover in which Jacob sheds his long Hasidic hair locks. Jacob, now in his new secular clothes borrowed from Levine Jr, Jacob runs into Rachel and the two go off on a walk together. Schmuhl sees them together and notices they are attracted to each other plots to prevent their relationship. He goes to the local Matchmaker and hires him to go to Mrs Kornberg to negotiate a marriage with her daughter. As the Matchmaker is discussing the matter with Mrs Kornberg, Rachel arrives and when told of the marriage proposal from Levine she angrily refuses and storms out. The Matchmaker reports this to Levine who blames her reluctance on the presence of Jacob and he plots to have him removed by writing to Mr Mandel and telling him Jacob has been backsliding in his studies and living a sinful life. Baruch arrives as Jacob is getting dance lessons with Levine Jr and a woman and he furiously orders him to pack his things and return home which he does after writing a goodbye note to Rachel and leaving it with Levine Jr who delivers it to her. She runs after him but is too late. Later Baruch has arranged a proper marriage for Jacob with the daughter of a wealthy merchant and we see him at the wedding reception having returned to wearing his Hasidic clothes. At the signing of the wedding contract Baruch has second thoughts remembering the vow he made to Chaym twenty years earlier but he goes through with signing the contract. During the pre-wedding feast Jacob sits alone depressed over his marriage and missing Rachel. The next day as Baruch heads out to make more wedding arrangements he is warned not to go by a stranger who accosts him on the street and warns him from going but he brushes the stranger off and as he does so the stranger changes form to Elijah and fades away without Baruch noticing. his journey is next interrupted as his horse stops and refuses to go as the invisible form of Elijah is holding the horse's bridle. Angrilly Baruch runs off on foot but misses his train and instead falls and injures himself and is brought home. Baruch is plagued by bad luck forcing him to sell some of his businesses which include a lumber yard and while he is showing it to a perspective but he is almost struck by a falling tree and is convinced he has seen the woodcutter before. The falling tree killed a bird who had been in her nest and unseen by Baruch the woodcutter scoops her up and breathes life into the bird before changing form back into Elijah and disappearing.



That night as Baruch is sleeping he is visited by the spirit of Chyam who reminds him of his vow to marry his son Jacob to his daughter rachel. Suddenly Baruch is woken by the news that a forest fire has broken out and he has to flee but as he does he sees a vision of himself and Chaym making their vow for their children's marriage and he collapses. Meanwhile the Matchmaker has returned to the Kornbergs to convince Rachel to marry Levine. Again she refuses as she is waiting for Jacob to return so the Matchmaker shows her the news that Jacob is to be wed and she collapses. With Rachel depressed and refusing to leave her bed Levine hires a doctor to examine her and he prescribed time in the country air so Levine pays to send her to a country sanitorium to recover where he follows and again proposes marriage and this time she wearily agrees. Mother and Daughter visit Chaym's grave to pray for guidance and help. That night Rachel dreams that the spirits from the cemetery rise from their graves and come to dance at her wedding where Jacob appears as her groom only to suddenly turn into Levine and she awakes screaming that she will never marry Levine. Baruch has returned home and deciding he must stop the wedding he rushes off to Vilna. Jacob arrives home where he is told by his mother about Rachel's wedding but not that his father has rushed off to try and stop it. On the wedding day Rachel is depressed while Levine throws a wedding feast which Elijah attends now in the disguise of a wealthy merchant. Levine invites him to stay and the Chief Rabbi recognizes him as being a holy man. As the wedding is about to start Baruch arrives and stops it telling everyone about his vow with Chaym. Jacob rushes in and insists he has the right to marry Rachel and Elijah says their wedding is blessed dismissing Levine and the wedding guests who meekly comply leaving Rachel and Jacob alone with Mrs Kornberg, Baruch and the Rabbi. That night Elijah visits Levine in a vision and orders him to give the jewels to the Rabbi so he can return them to Mrs Mrs Kornberg. Elijah and the Rabbi visit the Kornbergs who are at home with Jacoba and Baruch and return the jewels then Elijah vanishes. The Rabbi now realizes who Elijah actually was and Baruch many of the men he had met who had tried to influence him to keep his vow (the Woodcutter, a coachman etc) were all actually Elijah in disguise. He is relieved to have kept his vow and gives his full blessing to the wedding of Rachel and Jacob. Elijah is shown returning to his true form as an old wandering beggar and leaving Vilna. We return to the men in the tavern as the Narrator finishes the story. Finis.  


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While this film shares some obviously similar themes to "The Dybbuk" and can also be considered an example of Yiddish Gothic there are some notable differences. While "The Dybbuk", at least the film version, is essentially a supernatural Gothic romance with religious undertones "The Vow" is a religious film with supernatural Gothic romance undertones, thus the focus is different as is the intent. "The Dybbuk" is Gothic and fatalistic, "The Vow" is conservative and reassuring. "The Vow" is presented from the start as a religious parable about the importance of keeping a sacred vow and a virtuous religious life with the main supernatural character being a Biblical prophet with a clear moral message. The message here is clear and even simplistic; Chaim and Baruch made a sacred vow in the presence of Elijah the Prophet and so Baruch must keep his word even if the original vow was impulsive and not well thought out or for that matter entirely fair since it's not Baruch's fault that Chaim moved away and lost contact and further neither man could know the were making the vow in the presence of Elijah in the first place since he was in disguise. Still keeping the vow is clearly in the best interest of the Kornbergs and it's obviously what Jacob wants so while Elijah may be taking things a little literally he's doing what's right in the end. By contrast in "The Dybbuk" Chamon summoning a demon to win over a bride even unto death seems a little obsessive if not stalkerish. In "The Vow" the Chief Rabbi recognizes who Elijah is and defers to him in maintaining community standards while in "The Dybbuk" the Chief Rabbi fails to fully understand the true nature of the spirit and thus fails in his exorcism. Note the subtitle of this film as "A Rabbi's Power" is a little ironic as he clearly is not the main power here, however well intentioned.


ELIJAH MEETS THE RABBIS

This film itself has an odd history. Originally filmed in 1924 Poland by actor/director Zygmunt Turkow, who also appeared in it as Elijah, as a silent. Like other Yiddish films it probably made its way to other European countries with substantial urban Jewish communities such as Germany, Romania and eventually America as well. By the sound era in 1933 American Jewish director George Roland re-released it as a sound version with a new voice-over narration in Yiddish by actor Joseph Buloff as well as adding English subtitles, removing the original Yiddish intertitles and changed the title to "A Vilna Legend". He may have also made some other edits but more importantly he also filmed new opening and closing framing sequences being those set in the tavern with the men sitting around while one (Buloff) tells the story and narrates while the others act as Greek chorus periodically throughout the film. These scenes were seemingly added to make the film more relatable to modern American Jewish viewers who may have found the mystical imagery old-fashioned. By doing so however this has the effect of undermining those themes by removing the viewer from the story somewhat by presenting it not as a immersive fantasy, as most Gothic and Expressionist films are, and instead as a story told by a narrator who is not entirely reliable as he is clearly telling a tall-tale fable. The obvious comparison is the 1920 German film "The Cabinet Of Dr Caligari" where director Robert Wiene (apparently prodded by the studio) added opening and closing scenes which many thought changed and even undermined the supernatural and political themes of the script by framing the entire story as a tale told by a clearly unreliable narrator, in that case an inmate in an asylum.



The new narration by Roland actually takes the religious message and imagery and makes it more preachy as it strains to point out how Jacob has "taken the first step" towards sin by first shedding his hasidic clothes and then his long hair-locks before (gasp of horror) taking dancing lessons, and from a woman no less. Clearly Roland was not prepared to risk having the viewer figure this out themselves but he may have gone further than Tutkow's original version intended. In Roland's voiceover the character of Levine's son is explicitly presented as lapsed, sinful and a bad influence of Jacob pointing out that he "never prays" and prefers to smoke and party with girls (gasp again) and when Levine makes a pass at the much younger Rachel, the Narrator sniffly says he is "like father like son". However that is not really fair to him as in the actual film we see Levine treats Jacob quite well. In the beginning when his cronies mock Jacob's provincial ways he dismisses them and takes him home, he includes him in his fun, doesn't mock him, when Jacob is summoned home he packs for him and when entrusted with a letter for Rachel he does deliver it and when Levine Sr makes a pass at Rachel it is Levine Jr who interrupts so saying he is "like father like son" is just wrong. He may be a frivolous adolescent who would rather party than study but he is a loyal friend to Jacob. Somewhat inconsistently at the end when Jacob rushes off to stop Rachel's wedding, by which time he had already been dragged home by his father for lapsing from the Hasidic ways, he is still wearing his fashionable secular clothes although in the end he has changed back. The original film is not shy in using other obvious religious imagery as when Jacob is shown being tempted and distracted from his studies by Rachel literally using an apple as if she were Eve in the Garden Of Eden.  


RACHEL VISITS JACOB AT THE SCHOOL

At any rate besides making these changes Roland also changed the opening credits naming himself as sole director and snubbing Turkow entirely which was rather unethical and probably legally actionable by Turkow even in the somewhat lax copyright laws of the era, unless Roland purchased the full rights to the film. Making changes to silent films, even substantial ones, was not unusual at the time, "Metropolis" is a case in point, and once the the sound era began the most silent films became worthless so doing so with a film with such a specific audience would not be that unusual, although taking a full directors credit is another matter. This is assuming Turkow even fully knew about it at the time. However in 1933 he was still in Poland where he would remain until the Nazis invaded in 1939 when he was able to flee to Brazil. After the war he moved to Israel where he continued his stage career so if he ever heard about the 1933 rerelease and its changes he may have felt it not worth pursuing especially for a film using by then obsolete technology and for an inherently limited audience. In addition in 1937 while still in Poland, Tutkow himself did a completely remade sound version (also in Yiddish) to good reviews which still survives. The 1937 version (in which he again cast himself as Elijah) somewhat mutes the supernatural themes in favour of focussing on the more conventional romance. Ironically after all this long and winding road the print now extant has lost it's voiceover soundtrack while stll having the added scenes and subtitles so in the end the film now survives as a silent anyway.



Visually the film is pretty conventional for the most part but it does has a few nicely Gothic and Expressionist touches as the dead rising from their graves wrapped in prayer shawls to descend on the wedding is classically Gothic and the scene where Jacob is taken to a fantasy burlesque to be tempted by dancing girls could almost be from an early German "Street Film" if it had been done with a bit more flair, while the scene with Jacob being lured to the cemetery and locked in could come from one of Victor Seastrom's Swedish films. There are a couple attempts at comedy as well (both oddly involving food) that are at odds with the tone of the rest of the film. There are a few other scenes with Elijah appearing and vanishing which are echoed in "The Dybbuk" in the Messenger character. The cemetery doesn't have the Expressionist moodiness of "The Dybbuk" and in fact none of the sets are especially noteworthy unlike in classic Expressionist films and are instead presented more or less realistically. Director Turkow did not have the same experience as "Dybbuk" director Waszynski or for that matter even George Roland, in fact this would be his first film and he would only direct one more as well as acting in three others but he may not have the experience or esthetic vision as one working in a decade earlier in a new medium, he does an effective job here and most of the clunkier aspects of the story telling are really the result of changes made by Roland.



Like "The Dybbuk"  this film was based on a play although often compared to the better known latter film with which it shares some obvious similarities "The Vow"  was in fact older both as a film and a play. Written in 1907 by Peretz Hirschbein, who was also a Jewish writer in Tsarist controlled Poland. Unlike the more secular Rapoport he had a religious upbringing and education and somewhat unusually he would not only write in Yiddish but also in Hebrew, then considered a more scholarly language rarely used for contemporary literature. Unlike the wide ranging Raporport who wrote a lot of non fiction scholarly and political activist works Hirschbein concentrated on fiction writing stories, poetry and especially plays and he founded his own theatre company which became highly influential in Eastern in promoting Yiddish theatre as having legitimate drama asidefrom the usual musicals and comedies. He also travelled through much of Europe and to the Americas where he settled in New York just before the Great War. During that war and while on a transatlantic trip the ship he was on was sunk by a German U-Boat and was captured by the Germans who dropped him off in Brazil where he managed to make his way to Hollywood, where he resumed his career. He'd live to see the end of the Third Reich dying of Lou Gehrig's disease in Los Angeles in 1948 aged 67.  


PERETZ HIRSCHBEIN

As in "The Dybbuk" most of the cast survived the Holocaust. As mentioned Turkow ended up in America where after a respected theatre career on four continents he died in 1970. Besides casting himself in a role of Elijah he also cast his wife, Ida Kaminska, as Rachel and her screen mother would be played by her real life mother Esther-Rokhi Kaminska. Turkow and Ida would be divorced in 1932 (the year before Roland's 1933 rerelease) and she would end up having an even more successful career than her ex-husband.


ZYGMUNT TURKOW

She remarried and also fled Poland during the war, in her case to the USSR, but returned to rebuild the Yiddish theatre and acted in films earning an unusual Oscar nomination in 1967 for the Czech film "The House On Main Street". She left Eastern Europe for good after the 1968 and yet another Soviet invasion and moved to America where she became a mentor to what remained of the American Yiddish theatre in New York where she died in 1980. Her mother Esther, born in 1870, had been a respected actor in Tsarist Poland and Lithuania since the 1890's known as the Yiddish Eleanor Duse. She made a few other short films but this was her only feature film made before she died in 1925 aged only 55.


IDA KAMINSKA

Ironically Turkow's second wife Diana Blumenfeld was also an actress who played a small role in this film which raises some eyebrows in retrospect, she died in 1961 New York. As if to make things more complicated (not to mention incestuous) Turkow also cast his younger brother Jonas as Jacob's Yeshiva school friend and Jonas would also marry Diana Blumenfeld. He ended up in Israel where he died in 1988 aged 90. At least one member of the cast, Samuel Landau, who plays a minor role here, would also appear in "The Dybbuk" a decade later. David Lederman, who plays the Matchmaker, would later appear in one of the last notable pre-war Polish Yiddish films "Kol Nidre" in 1939 and he fled to Argentina where he was still active into the 1950's.


ESTHER KAMINSKA

As for director George Roland, he claimed to have worked as a film editor since before the Great War although actual proof of this is spotty at best. During the 1930's he carved out a successful, if somewhat shady sideline in taking silent films, usually with Biblical themes, and re-editing them with new voiceovers and rereleasing them as educational or religious films under his own name as he had with "The Vow". While this may not have been exactly ethical, some of his versions are the only surviving copies of these films. A tireless hustler to the end he promoted himself as a director although he actually worked mostly as an editor on various unknown projects although he may have made various typically uncreditted educational and industrial short films before he died in 1961.


GEORGE ROLAND & FRIENDS

Joseph Buloff, who played the Narrator in the Roland version, would have the longest carrer in film and theatre career both in the Yiddish theatre and on television and Hollywood in such TV series as the popular sitcom "The Goldbergs", crime show "The Naked City", medical drama "Ben Casey", supernatural anthologies "Lights Out", "Suspense" and "Tales Of Tomorrow" and films "Somebody Up There Likes Me" (1956) and "Silk Stockings" (1957) and finally an appearance Warren Beatty's 1981 epic "Reds" before dying in 1985 aged 86.


JOSEPH BULOFF

If Yiddish Expressionism is indeed a film genre version of Yiddish Gothic theatre these two films may well be the only examples of it and they would certainly make for a unique Halloween/Yom Kippur double feature.




THE DYBBUK IN WOODCUT FORM;