From: mleeper@optonline.net   
      
   CAPSULE:  Paydirt!  A Yiddish film made in Poland in 1938 turns out   
   to be a little-known gem.  The film lacks a lot of what we might   
   consider high production values, but besides being an unintentional   
   artifact of the culture of Eastern European Jewry wiped out in the   
   Holocaust, it also turns out to be a haunting horror film that   
   deserves to be seen by all fans of 1920s and 1930s horror films.   
   At least one sequence, a grotesque dance, ranks this film up with   
   some of the best of German Expressionism.  Rating: +3 (-4 to +4).   
      
   Watching the 1938 Polish-made Yiddish film THE DYBBUK, one is only   
   too aware that the film is flawed.  Much of the acting is   
   exaggerated as it would be in a silent film.  Some of the   
   photography seems poor, as well as some of the editing.  At least   
   once the film cuts from a quiet scene to a loud scene and the   
   sudden sound causes the audience to jump.  It is true, however,   
   that in retrospect most of the faults seem hard to remember.  The   
   strongest memories of the film are beautiful images, some haunting   
   and horrifying.  And while taken individually many of the scenes   
   were less effective for me than they may have been for THE DYBBUK's   
   intended audience, this is a great mystical horror film, perhaps   
   one of the better horror films of the 1930s.   
      
   [Spoilers follow, though as with a Shakespeare play, one does not   
   see THE DYBBUK for plot surprises.]   
      
   Sender and Nisn have been very close friends since their student   
   days.  Now they see each other only on holidays.  To cement the   
   bond of their friendship they vow that if their respective first   
   children--each expected soon--are of opposite sexes then they will   
   arrange a marriage of the two children.  Sure enough, Sender has a   
   daughter Leyele, though he loses his wife in childbirth. Nisn has a   
   son, Khonnon, though an accident claims Nisn's life before he can   
   even see his new son or conclude his arrangement to marry Khonnon   
   to Leyele.   
      
   Years later Khonnon, now a Talmudic scholar, meets Leyele and they   
   fall in love.  Neither knows about the vow they would be married   
   and Sender does not know whose son Khonnon is.  The intense Khonnon   
   is already considering giving up his study of the Talmud to study   
   Kabalah, the great book of mystical knowledge and magic.  Sender   
   three times tries to arrange a marriage with a rich but rather   
   sheepish young man.  Twice the plans fail and Khonnon believes his   
   magic has averted the arrangement.  The third time, however, an   
   agreement is reached.  Khonnon calls upon dark forces to help him   
   but is consumed by his own spell and found dead.  The day of   
   Leyele's marriage--in fact, during the marriage ceremony itself--   
   Khonnon's spirit returns from the grave as a dybbuk, a possessing   
   demon, and takes over the body of the woman he was denied.  Leyele   
   is taken to a great and pious Rabbi, now nearing the end of his   
   life and torn with self-doubts, who alone may have the knowledge to   
   remove the demon.   
      
   If some of this smacks of William Peter Blatty, it should be   
   remembered that this is a 1938 film based on a pre-World-War-I   
   play.  THE DYBBUK by S. Anski (a pen name for Shloyme Zanvl   
   Rappoport), along with THE GOLEM by H. Leivick (a pen name for   
   Leivick Halper), are perhaps the two best remembered (and most   
   commonly translated) plays of the great Yiddish Theater.  While   
   Yiddish folklore has many dybbuk and golem stories, and the play   
   THE GOLEM was based on an actual legend ("The Golem of Prague"),   
   THE DYBBUK was an original story involving a legendary type of   
   demon.  The film retells the story of the play, but remains very   
   different.  Other than plot there is not much of the play carried   
   over into the film.   
      
   All too commonly constraints of budget and even what appears now to   
   be inappropriate style rob some scenes of their effect.  Much of   
   the acting is exaggerated in ways that might have been more   
   appropriate to silent film or to the stage.  In fact, in some ways   
   this feels like an entire film done in a style much like the early,   
   good scenes of the 1931 DRACULA.  Director Michal Waszynski could   
   well be excused on the grounds that he was making the film for a   
   very different audience.  However, just occasionally, a scene will   
   be really supremely well done.  The best sequence of the film is   
   when Leyele, just before her marriage, is called upon to dance with   
   the poor of the town, as is traditional.  Leyele is reluctant and   
   the dance turns into a grotesquery culminating with Leyele dancing   
   with a figure of death.  The film is a showcase for Yiddish songs,   
   cantorial singing, and dancing, both traditional and modern.  Much   
   seems out of place, but this one dance creates one of the most   
   eerie and effective horror scenes of its decade.   
      
   THE DYBBUK stands as more than a good horror film.  It is also an   
   artifact of pre-Holocaust Yiddish film and of Eastern European   
   Jewish village life.  Curiously, for a Yiddish film some of the   
   stereotypes that appear could be interpreted as being anti-Semitic.   
   We see a miser with exaggerated Jewish features counting and   
   recounting his coins.  We see what is intended to be a great Rabbi   
   looking pompous, fat, sloppy, and apparently lazy.  Why a Yiddish   
   film would have such images is open to question.   Still, it is a   
   pity that this film is not better known.  It deserves to be thought   
   of as a major film of its decade.  I rate it +3 on the -4 to +4   
   scale.  Congratulations to the National Center for Jewish Film for   
   restoring this film.   
      
   --   
   Mark R. Leeper   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)