Rent Hester Street (1974)

A likeable period piece - Hester Street review by (NONE)

Full of human feeling and subtlety, and the team have made a wonderful re-creation of Jewish New York in the 1890s. I loved the Pedlar, who might have walked straight in from a shtetl. The ending is a bit sudden but by that time everything that needed to be said has been said - except right at the end when the heroine, having persuaded the Talmudist to marry her, firmly tells him he will have nothing to do with her new shop but will go on with his studies on the back room as before.

Face to Face - Hester Street review by CH

How does one judge the success of a film? Mention Hester Street (1975) now and, chances are, it will not bring widespread recognition. In fact, it was made – by Joan Micklin Silver from Abraham Cahan's novella - for a modest cost which was recouped many times over. Many others' work should be so lucky. Filmed in black and white, it almost appears to have been made at the very time it depicts: the 1890s Lower East Side, a haunt of those immigrants from Eastern Europe, many Jewish, who had put pogroms behind them to seek a new life.

This was no simple matter. Steven Keats, as an immigrant a few years earlier, has adapted to American life under a new name, found work in the sewing district, and, as such, sent for his wife (Carol Kane) and young son (Paul Freedman) to join him in a modest boarding house.

He has been for dancing lessons, and, one infers, enjoyed dalliances, all of which is a shock to his wife who is an adherent of Jewish traditions, such as a need for wigs to obscure hair, and, failing that, a hat at all times. Here is a film of fraught interiors (along with some well-realised street scenes), many of which take place upon staircases between these modest apartments (which, in the twenty-first century, command a fortune).

For all that, there is a comedy to these dilemmas, not least in the surreal sequence which depicts in some detail the long-bearded deliberations which comprise a Jewish divorce (after which the husband is free to re-marry immediately while his ex-wife has to wait ninety-two days).

Awards ceremonies are not usually something to be mentioned in film reviews, but Carol Kane was up against Louise Fletcher as Nurse Ratched in One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest. No need to remind you who won, and all praise to her – but it could have been shared with Carol Kane, who brought as wonderfully a stoney face to her rôle.

Atmospheric, in spite of its shortcomings, but needs remastering - Hester Street review by CM

The story was engrossing, well-acted, the scenes all well-presented, but continuity a bit jumpy, & the sound was very poor; lacking subtitles for the English speech, a lot was missed.