DER PURIMSPILER
(THE JESTER)
Director: Joseph Green and Jan Nowina-Przybylski.
Dialogue and Song Lyrics by Itzik Manger
Music by Nicholas Brodsky.
Filmed outside of Warsaw and in Kazimierz.
Released in U.S. on December 5, 1937.
 90 minutes
black & white

"Set in a Galician shtetl before World War I, this musical comedy is rich with itinerant performers and star-crossed lovers. Negotiating the romantic rapids are a lonely jester, a circus performer, and Esther, the shoemaker's daughter, whose poor father tries to marry her into a prominent family. the intrigue climaxes with a Pruim shpil (Purim play), and its parade of costumes, buffoonery, and music.

Directors Joseph Green (Yiddle with His Fiddle, Mamele, A Letter to Mother) and Jan Nowina-Przybylski filmed on location on a farm near Warsaw and in Kazimierz.

The film's wonderful circus and vaudeville set pieces and music offer a taste of Warsaw's then-thriving Yiddish revues and cabarets, which were obliterated during the Holocaust.

New film restoration includes  new English subtitles and the preservation of rare, original blue & sepia-toned segments."
-- The National Center for Jewish Film