MOLLY: THE GOLDBERGS Screened At The Jewish Museum 8/5

The Jewish Museum will present a screening of the feature film Molly: The Goldbergs (director: Walter Hart, United States, 1950, 83 min) on Thursday, August 5 at 6:30 pm. This portrayal of the daily hardships and small triumphs of a working class Jewish family from the Bronx is based on the long-running, warmhearted radio and TV series, The Goldbergs. The principal cast of the TV series, including the show's star, Gertrude Berg, appear in the film.

Tickets for this program are $15 for the general public, $12 for students and senior citizens, and $10 for Jewish Museum members. For further information regarding programs at The Jewish Museum, the public may call 212.423.3337. Tickets for lectures, film screenings and concerts at The Jewish Museum can now be purchased online at the Museum's Web site, www.thejewishmuseum.org/calendar.

The extremely popular radio sitcom The Goldbergs (which ran from 1929 to 1947) made a transition to television and then to this film. As scriptwriter and star, Gertrude Berg was one of leading women in radio, with the longest running show second only to Amos and Andy. The appeal of The Goldbergs television show was similar to that of The Honeymooners, both featuring character studies set in 1950s New York City, though The Goldbergs was more broadly ethnic and featured more plausible situations and gentler humor. The Goldbergs was also unique for its time, in that Gertrude Berg was among the few actresses to also serve as head scriptwriter and a producer of a series.

In the film, the Goldbergs are anticipating a visit from Alexander Abel, an old rival of Jake Goldberg and Molly's former suitor. Jake is anxious to impress the now-successful Alexander, even though it means putting up a false front and risking his own business. Alexander faces his own troubles with his fiancée Debby, a woman from the Midwest young enough to be his daughter. When Debby meets a handsome music teacher nearer her own age, she feels a romantic conflict. It‘s up to Molly Goldberg to set things to rights for both her husband and Alexander.

Writing about the film in 2003, The New York Times' A. O. Scott called Molly Goldberg "...the mother of all Yiddisheh Mamas: a bustling font of gossip, nudging and maternal wisdom..." He wrote, "[a]side from the dynamism of Ms. Berg's performance, part of the pleasure of watching Molly is in seeing a comic representation of lower-middle-class American Jewish life that predates the current wave of nostalgia and sentimentality -- to witness, in effect, ethnic clichés being molded from the clay of social experience."

An infrared assistive listening system for the hearing impaired is available for programs in the Museum's S. H. and Helen R. Scheuer Auditorium.

Public Programs at The Jewish Museum are supported, in part, by public funds from by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs. Major annual support is provided by the New York State Council on the Arts, a State Agency. The stage lighting has been funded by the Office of Manhattan Borough President Scott M. Stringer. The audio-visual system has been funded by New York State Assembly Member Jonathan Bing.

About The Jewish Museum
Widely admired for its exhibitions and educational programs that inspire people of all backgrounds, The Jewish Museum is the preeminent United States institution exploring the intersection of 4,000 years of art and Jewish culture. The Jewish Museum was established in 1904, when Judge Mayer Sulzberger donated 26 ceremonial art objects to The Jewish Theological Seminary of America as the core of a museum collection. Today, the Museum maintains an important collection of 26,000 objects-paintings, sculpture, works on paper, photographs, archaeological artifacts, ceremonial objects, and broadcast media.

General Information
Museum hours are Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday, 11am to 5:45pm; Thursday, 11am to 8pm; and Friday, 11am to 4pm. Museum admission is $12.00 for adults, $10.00 for senior citizens, $7.50 for students, free for children under 12 and Jewish Museum members. Admission is free on Saturdays. For general information on The Jewish Museum, the public may visit the Museum's website at http://www.thejewishmuseum.org or call 212.423.3200. The Jewish Museum is located at 1109 Fifth Avenue at 92nd Street, Manhattan.