Humoresque (Part I)
CINEMA VERSION OF FANNIE HURST’S STORY pLAYS AT THE CRITERION
One hundred years ago today … Humoresque, the cinema adaptation of Fanny Hurst's short story “Humoresque,” was in the first of a five-week run at the Criterion, 1514 Broadway at 44th Street.
The movie depicts a gifted violinist, born to a Jewish immigrant family, who plays his way out of the Lower East Side tenements and into stardom.
It received strong reviews in NYC papers, which focused on it as a chronicle of immigrant life in the Lower East Side “Ghetto”—the word used in the three reviews below.
The New York Tribune, 31 May 1920, p. 11. Newspapers.com.
Reviews in Brooklyn newspapers were particularly effusive.
The Standard Union, 1 June,1920, p. 7. Newspapers.com.
Of note is that the Tribune review eschews any mention of the characters’ Jewishness, whereas The Standard Union lauds the depiction of “Jewish life in America.” The Brooklyn Times Union splits the difference, with a twist, calling Humoresque “a study in the development of a foriegn people in the benighn atmospheee [sic] of America”:
The Brooklyn Times Union, 30 May 1920, p. 10. Newspapers.com.
On June 1, 1920, the movie had taken over first billing at the Criterion from Why Change Your Wife?, which we covered for our May 6 post. (Click here.)
The Sun and New York Herald, 29 May 1920, p.6. Newspapers.com.
Preceding “Humoresque” on the program were shorts by Mack Sennett featuring Charlie Chaplin, and a dance performance by Desiree Lubovska, which itself was noted in the press, such as in the highlighting of this “impressionistic dancer” by Brooklyn Life, below.
Brooklyn Life, 29 May 1920, p.6. Brooklyn Newsstand.
Desiree Lubovska (sometimes written “Lubowska,” sometimes “Lubkowska”) was the stage name of Winniefred Foote, a Minnesotan who affected a Russian accent and claimed to be a Russian emigre.
As for Brooklyn Life, it was a weekly devoted to “the activities of Brooklyn's upper crust,” according to this Brooklyn Public Library post.
WRITTEN BY JONATHAN GOLDMAN, JUNE 4, 2020.
Tags: Humoresque, Fannie Hurst, Criterion, Brooklyn, Lubovska, cinema, immigrants, film, movie