Eli Mintz Movies
Actor Eli Mintz has worked on stage, television, and screen. He came to the States in 1927 with his family and launched his career in New York Yiddish theater. Mintz is best remembered for playing Uncle David in The Goldbergs, a long-running play that was based on a radio show and was later adapted for a film and a television series. Mintz played David in all but the radio show. Following the demise of the television show, Mintz returned to Broadway. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
Woody Allen's tenth film as writer/director, Stardust Memories opens with a scene reminiscent of the opening of 8 1/2 and continues to use that film for inspiration. Sandy Bates (Allen) sits in a train at a train station, the car filled with very unhappy looking people. In a train on another set of tracks, Bates sees a wonderful party going on. A beautiful woman blows him a kiss as the happy train pulls out of the station. Bates is a famous film director who has been invited to attend a festival of his work being held at the Stardust hotel. He attends the event, but is ceaselessly harassed by fans who accost him and repel him in equal measure. While consistently hearing the complaints from fans, critics, and even space aliens that his earlier comedies are superior to his dramatic work, Bates juggles a trio of women in his private life. His encounters during the course of the retrospective force Bates to take a long look at himself. Sharon Stone makes one of her first film appearances as the woman who blows Sandy a kiss. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Woody Allen, Charlotte Rampling, (more)
- 1979
In this drama, David Rosen (Lee Strasberg) and his wife Becky (Ruth Gordon) have lived in the same Coney Island neighborhood for nearly all their married life. But the area is not what it used to be, and a gang leader named Strut (Kim Delgado) has decided to make Coney Island his new turf. Strut begins shaking down the merchants in the area, demanding payment for "protection" and using violence to deal with anyone who gets in his way. David refuses to give Strut protection money for the restaurant he owns, and as a result his diner is soon firebombed, while many of his neighbors are attacked and his synagogue is desecrated. When Becky dies, David decides that he can stand no more, and he plots his revenge against Strut and his underlings. Director Stephen F. Verona manages to combine a Death Wish-style revenge scenario with a mood piece that generates a very real nostalgia for what Coney Island once was -- and still is for many of the characters in this story. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ruth Gordon, Lee Strasberg, (more)
- 1976
- PG
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This spoof makes fun of a certain famous German shepherd movie star from the 1920s. The mayhem begins when the head honcho of a financially struggling studio turns a lost dog into a legend. The story features a number of old stars making cameo appearances. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bruce Dern, Madeline Kahn, (more)
This true crime story was hardly "ripped from today's headlines," since the events took place some 20 to 30 years before the movie was released. Still, Murder, Inc. is not afraid to name names, notably those of syndicate boss Louis "Lepke" Buchalter (David J. Stewart) and killer Abe Reles (Peter Falk), who squeals on the Mob to earn immunity. The activities of Buchalter's murder-for-hire operation are played against a fictional story about a nightclub singer (Stuart Whitman) and a dancer (May Britt). Murder, Inc. has a queasy, unsettling quality, due in part to some offbeat casting: TV comedian Henry Morgan co-stars as a dead-serious federal agent, while "human joke machine" Morey Amsterdam shows up as a cabaret entertainer who is stabbed by the Mob. The film was a major boost for the career of Peter Falk, who very nearly managed to parlay his Murder, Inc. supporting role into an Academy Award. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Stuart Whitman, May Britt, (more)
A gentler but no less resourceful Alan Ladd stars in The Proud Rebel. Ladd is cast as civil war veteran John Chandler, while the star's son David (who grew up to become a powerful Hollywood producer) plays Chandler's emotionally disturbed son David. Since suffering a traumatic shock during the war, David has not spoken a single word. With his son in tow, John wanders the frontier in search of a doctor who might cure David's muteness. Along the way, he runs afoul of sheep baron Harry Burleigh (Dean Jagger), and for a brief period is forced into indentured servitude to pay a debt to farm woman Linnet Moore (Olivia de Havilland). Falling in love with Linnet, John vows to protect her land from the covetous machinations of Burleigh and his brood. It is during the climactic set-to between good guys and bad that David at long last finds his voice again. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Alan Ladd, Olivia de Havilland, (more)
- 1957
In his second Playhouse 90 appearance of the 1956-57 season, Art Crney stars as Robert Briscoe, the colorful, controversial Lord Mayor of Dublin, Ireland. Although of Jewish parentage, Briscoe was "accepted" as a Hibernian through and through on the strength of his fearless patriotism during the 1916 Irish Rebellion against British rule. As a member in good standing of the original Irish Republican Army and the nationalist Sinn Fein movement, Briscoe worked side by side with another legendary Irish freedom fighter, Eamon de Valera, reserving his fighting for the nighttime hours while pursuing a daytime job as a wool salesman. Briscoe's tireless and death-defying efforts on behalf of his countrymen were rewarded in 1956, when he won the mayoral race in the Dublin that he helped to wrest free from British domination. This 90-minute drama proved quite an eye-opener to TV fans who knew Art Carney only for his comic characterizations on The Jackie Gleason Show. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Art Carney, Katherine Bard, (more)
- 1950
A radio favorite since 1929, actress/producer Gertrude Berg's "Goldberg Family" made its film debut in 1950's The Goldbergs. Berg recreates her radio role of Molly Goldberg, the firm but gentle matriarch of a Jewish family living in the heart of New York. Carried over from the TV version of The Goldbergs (which debuted in 1949) is Philip Loeb as Jake Goldberg, who in this film expresses mild annoyance when Alexander (Eduard Franz), one of Molly's old flames, comes to visit. Jake changes his tune when Alexander offers to finance Jake's business ventures. This plan is scotched when well-meaning Molly breaks up a romance between Jake and the much-younger Debby (Barbara Rush). Things take a happier turn towards the end, as all "Goldbergs" fans knew they would. Featured in the cast is Eli Mintz as Uncle Jake, Larry Robinson as Sammy and Arlene McQuade as Rosalie, all of whom were concurrently featured in the Goldbergs TV series. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gertrude Berg, Philip Loeb, (more)
