American Matchmaker

SELECTED SCREENINGS

AMERICAN MATCHMAKER
International Yiddish Theatre Festival of Montreal (2009)
Edgar G. Ulmer Retrospective, Filmhouse Cinema, UK (2009)
Cape Town/ Johannesburg Yiddish Film Festival (2008)
Miami Jewish Film Festival (2006)
Phoenix Jewish Film Festival (2005)
UC Berkeley Art Museum, Berkeley California (2005)
Montreal Jewish Film Festival (2005)
Vancouver Jewish Film Festival (2005)
San Francisco Jewish Film Festival (2005)
Museum of Jewish Heritage, New York (2004)
British Film Institution (2004)
Musee d’Art de Histoire de Judaisme, Paris (2002)
Haifa Jewish Film Festival (2005)
Brooklyn Jewish Film Festival (2002)

I WANT TO BE A BOARDER
Pacific Film Archive (2009)
Vienna Jewish Film Festival, Vienna Film Archive (2008)
Brooklyn Jewish Film Festival (2002)
Miami Jewish Film Festival (1998)

NEWLY RESTORED 35MM PRINT WITH COMPLETE NEW SUBTITLES

Leo Fuchs, known on Second Avenue as “the Yiddish Fred Astaire,” plays an elegant and eligible bachelor who can never seem to close the marriage deal. Edgar G. Ulmer’s last Yiddish movie was also his most modern, an art deco romantic comedy about male ambivalence and Jewish assimilation. With its urbane, neurotic hero, American Matchmaker looks ahead to the films of Woody Allen.

Also included, the hilarious short I Want to Be a Boarder – a small classic of Yiddish absurdism – showcases Fuch’s comic virtuosity.

CRITICAL ACCLAIM

“As in the best Yiddish theater traditions, there is a successful combination of humor and schmaltz with the sentimentality at the end well-earned by the comic insights along the way... None is more charming than American Matchmaker. The title says it all – a clash between the urbane, slick manners of the new country and the old, busybody communal ways of the shtetl.”
– Films, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 1983

“If you can’t laugh at yourself, it’s going to be a tough life.” (refers to I Want to Be a Boarder.)
– Joseph Seiden, Brooklyn Daily Eagle

CREDITS

AMERICAN MATCHMAKER
Directed by Edgar G. Ulmer
Screenplay by S. Castle
Music and Lyrics by Sam Morgenstern, William Mercur
Starring Leo Fuchs, Judith Abarbanel, Judel Dubinksy, Anna Guskin, Celia Bodkin, Abraham Lax

I WANT TO BE A BOARDER
Produced & Directed by Joseph Seiden
Starring Leo Fuchs, Yetta Zwerling

PURCHASE DVD

American Matchmaker
$36.00 plus shipping
Home Use Only DVD (Not for Classroom/Institutional Use)

Does not include Public Performance Rights
Home Use Policy (pdf)

American Matchmaker
$72.00 plus shipping
Classroom/Institutional Use Only DVD

Does not include Public Performance Rights
Institutional Use Policy (pdf)

PURCHASE ALL 4 EDGAR ULMER YIDDISH CLASSICS

The Edgar Ulmer Collection
$126.00 plus shipping
Home Use Only DVD (Not for Classroom/Institutional Use)
Does not include Public Performance Rights
Home Use Policy (pdf)

The Edgar Ulmer Collection
$252.00 plus shipping
Classroom/Institutional Use Only DVD
Does not include Public Performance Rights
Institutional Use Policy (pdf)

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The National Center For Jewish Film
Brandeis University, Lown 102, MS053, Waltham MA 02454
P: (781) 899 7044, F: (781) 736 2070