•LIFE IN A BIG CITY•LOVE AND ROMANCE

Polish-American production.Directed by Joseph Green

and Jan Nowina-Przybylski.Starring Molly Picon and

Leon Liebgold.Green found a role

specifically for Picon.Music by Abraham Ellstein:

from film to life.Filmed in Kazimierz and

Warsaw.Real shtetl people as extras.

Musical comedy; melodrama; elements of slapstick comedy.

From near-documentary to a Cinderella tale.

Typical Yiddish “laughter through tears.”

Hollywood happy-ending.

Metapoetic scenes: director and producer looking for a new star.

Shtetl (Kazimierz)Semi-rural market

town;Horses as means of

transportation;Men with beards and

covered women;Archaic way of

dressing;Submissive women;Arranged marriage.

Big City (Warsaw)Grand urban space;Motor transport;Modern fashion for

men and women;A possibility of a

career for women;Independent women;Marriage for love.

Good daughter and a doting father.

Cross-dressing without provocation, for a defensive purpose.

Reinforcement of traditional morality.

“Desexualized” love scenes.

Comedic and comic approach.

Four different love stories in the film, all leading to marriage.