Hungry Hearts

Centennial Anniversary

Based on the short stories of Anzia Yezierska, the first writer to bring stories of American Jewish women to a mainstream audience, Hungry Hearts focuses on the members of the Levin family who emigrate from Eastern Europe to New York City's Lower East Side. Abraham, the pious father learned in religion but uninterested in business, has difficulty making a living and adjusting to life in America. The daughter Sara scrubs floors in the tenement in order to earn money and “become a somebody.” The mother Hannah, a noble matriarch, scrimps and saves to paint her dingy kitchen white only to have her landlord raise the rent because of the improvements. This bittersweet silent classic captures the hopes and hardships of Jewish immigrants in the New World and is a cinematic landmark for documenting the Jewish immigrant experience for the first time. Film restoration by The National Center for Jewish Film.

The restoration of this Jewish silent film will be presented live with an original music score performed by Sander Willig.

Director's Bio

E. Mason Hopper was an American film director and actor of the silent era. Like so many other American silent film directors, E. Mason Hopper came to movies with vast accumulated experience in any number of jobs. He'd been a vaudevillian, a stock actor/director, a food manufacturer, a baseball player and a student at the University of Maryland by the time he began directing one-reelers at Chicago's Essanay studios in 1911. He directed 76 films between 1911 and 1935.

Cast and Credits

Director

E. Mason Hopper

Screenwriter

Julien Josephson, Montague Glass

Cinematographer

Robert Newhard

Editor

Robert Kern

Cast

Bryant Washburn, Helen Ferguson, E. Alyn Warren

Film Info

Year

1922

Country

USA

Run-time

80 minutes

Language

English

Print Source

National Center for Jewish Film