Symphony of Six Million

I was intrigued with the title of Six Million having a Jewish theme and what the connection would be since the movie was made in 1932. Once watching I was riveted to the story. The actors were custom made for their parts, hearing Oyfn Pripinchik being played throughout the movie made it heartwarming and endearing. A real Yiddishe Mama, an old fashioned papa (fabric cutter) and their children all living on the Lower East Side. The theme was that one of their son's wanted to be a doctor and took up a practice in their neighborhood caring for the poor (sometimes accepting no payment or very little) because it was rewarding for him. His brother saw it as wasting his talents and wanted him to become a Park Avenue big shot to make money. He did and lost his spirit. But wait til the middle and the end to see what happens. Have a box of tissues around. You will need it. Typical Fanny Hurst style.

Like a good soup, there are many elements to this movie. You first have to start with a good stock. The stock in this movie is the Lower East Side of New York in the 30's. The hustle and bustle, the rag pickers, the pushcarts, the tailors, the fishmongers. The whole flavor of life in the Jewish ghetto. Without this backdrop the movie would fall flat.

Next are the ingredients. The cast in this movie is genuine and almost flawless. Gregory Ratoff as the father, Ricardo Cortez (Jacob Krantz) as his son - the doctor, and Noel Madison as the ambitious brother. They are all authentic and they are all Jewish. I said almost flawless because there is one flaw. Irene Dunne is cast as the love interest. She is a good actress, but she is clearly a shiksa in looks, speech, and mannerism. She stood out like a pork chop amongst the knishes and kugels.

Finally, none of this would matter if somebody didn't know how to cook. The story isn't original - as a matter of fact it is still being done today. A young boy grows up in poverty. A poor but nourishing neighborhood. He is part of a loving family which supports him in his quest to become a doctor. He succeeds and decides to devote his life to helping the underclass in the ghetto. His brother, meanwhile, becomes a successful businessman and convinces him that he should move "uptown" in order to make more money and help the family. He moves up the social ladder, becomes a raging success, and is celebrated by the rich and famous. Through a series of tragedies it becomes clear to him that he has lost his roots. It is only here,at the very end, that we have to give the director (probably at the direction of the producer David O. Selznick) a little melodramatic license. This movie was made in 1932 and drama was the order of the day.

You want subtle - watch something else. You want to choke up and feel good. Watch this.

Note: Although it was entirely unintentional, and could not have been imagined, there is an uncanny connection between the title of this movie and the holocaust which came to light a decade later. Six Million.

(There may be some Spoilers) Growing up in the Jewish ghetto on the lower East Side of Manhattan Felix Kauber, Ricardo Cortez, always wanted to help those less fortunate them himself which drove him to go into medical school and become a doctor. Working at the lower East Side Cherry Street Clinic Felix was happy helping the people in the area who couldn't afford to pay a family doctor or wait hours on end at the local hospital emergency ward for treatment which was no where up to the high standards that Felix provided for them free of charge.

Happy with his lot in life Felix's life begins to change for the worse when his greedy younger brother Magnus,Noal Maison, persuades their mom Mrs. Hanna Klauber, Anna Appal, to somewhat reluctantly tell Felix that he was throwing away his future as a high paid Park Avenue doctor, treating neurotic but very rich society women, by giving his service to people who were more or less charity cases.

It takes a while for Felix to change his lifestyle and doctors office, from downtrodden Cherry Street to rich and swanky Park Avenue, feeling rightly at first that his roots and friends that needed him most were in that poor to middle-class community. Finally taking his mom's and brothers advice Felix moves up in the world of medicine, and list of high class patients, becoming one of the foremost and respected surgeons in New York. But what he doesn't know until it's almost too late is that he traded in his humanity as well as his soul for a pot of porridge; like Esau the twin brother of Jacob traded his birthright in the bible.

Very effective and ahead of it's time early talkie about a Jewish family without the usual racial and ethnic stereotype. We even have Felix have a girlfriend the sweet and caring braille teacher Jessica, Irene Dunne, who seems to be non-Jewish, Jessica looks and acts like she's Irish, with his very Jewish parents not making a point of it which you would have expected in a very Jewish movie like "Symphony for Six Million".

Felix's father Mayer, Gregory Ratoff, as well as his mother Hanna and girlfriend Jessica become more and more distant from Filex as he becomes part of the upper crust of high society without even him realizing. When Felix wasn't able to attend to young Georgie, a boy from then ghetto, who died on the operating table that Felix finally realized that eh had gone astray; Georgie died with the words Felix on his lips. Felix got the news of Georgie's death from Jessica whom he at first, until he realized that it was her, didn't want to see her at his office because she didn't have a doctor's appointment.

Felix trying to keep his past in the Lower East Side behind him has it catch up with Felix big-time when his father Meyer suffers a stroke at a party given by Fielx's sister and her husband as well as their new born son. Filex being the only one who could remove the deadly tumor from his fathers brain suddenly freezes-up and in the ensuing operation Mayer dies on the operating table. It has to be said that Felix did the best he, or any other brain surgeon, could have but still held himself responsible for his fathers Meyer Klauber's death.

Broken in both mind and body Felix mindlessly roams the streets of New York in a haze not knowing if he'll ever be able to hold a scalpel in his hands again and goes into a deep depression where he just about gave up any hope or future from himself. It's when Felix got the word that his girlfriend Jessica is to be operated on, for the removable a spine tumor, that the old Felix came back. The attending physician Dr. Schiffen,John S. Polis, feeling that Felix is a much better surgeon then he'll ever be allows Felix to operate on Jessica. A bit rusty and out of form Felix never the less ends up saving Jessica in a miraculous spine operation thus saving both her life and redeeming his soul and his lifelong concern for the city's underprivileged.

Nowhere as corny as you would expect it to be with a solid performance by Ricardo Cortez, who's Jewish himself, as the humble and caring Jewish doctor Felix Klauber. Felix learned in the end what he always believed, until he was corrupted by a fistful of shekels. Felix learned that being a physician and surgeon is to live by the rule that he always had deeply etched in both his heart and soul and upheld until greed and high society momentary blinded him of it: "I dedicate these two hands..That the lame may walk, the halt be strong..Lifting up the needy; comforting the dying. This is my oath in the Temple of Healing".

The story is nice, the theme pleasant (money isn't everything), but the outstanding element is the Jewish working-class background of a non-orthodox family. Not claustrophobic like the Jazz Singer and other self-pitying films, this film has an open and sunny attitude that makes it very accessible. Excellent, warm portrayals by Gregory Ratoff and Anna Appel as the stereotypical parents.

... and Dr. Felix Klauber (Ricardo Cortez as the adult Felix) always seems to have the best intentions. The movie starts out showing Felix as a child studying on the doorstep of his family's ghetto tenement house, taking time to defend a local girl with a curved spine (Irene Dunne as Jessica) from some taunting street bullies. The movie spends a good deal of time focusing on Felix' home environment as a child. We learn that his parents are immigrant Jews, that his father has a kind heart but a bit of a temper, that his brother can be a trouble maker but only in the way that most boys can be, and that his mother is everything you'd want a mom to be. In other words, Felix lives surrounded by misery and poverty, but his own family is doing alright and he has a very good home. Felix is very thoughtful and decides the best way he can alleviate the misery of the poor is to become a doctor and treat everyone, regardless of ability to pay.

Unlike most childhood dreams, Felix works hard and makes his a reality. As a doctor he treats people both at his home - he still lives in the ghetto with his family - and at a local clinic set up for such work. Everybody is happy - except Felix' brother Magnus. Magnus has become a businessman, thinks everything should be for sale, and that includes medicine. He's unhappy that Felix still lives with his parents in the ghetto when he could set up a nice practice in the wealthier part of the city. Knowing his brother could care less what he thinks, he convinces their mother to beg Felix to go uptown based on the fact that their father is getting old and needs to retire. It works.

The next thing we see is Felix treating socialite women whose only problem is that they are bored and overweight, although he does get paid handsomely for it. Now everyone in the Klauber household is again happy - except Felix who realizes his talents are being wasted but just can't seem to break away from the ties that bind him to his new existence. He no longer even has time to spend with the family he did all of this for in the first place. How will all of this come out? I'll let you watch and find out.

The ending was a bit too melodramatic, but overall it was a pretty satisfying film. Another reviewer mentioned the one unusual precode element of this film - the detailed portrayal of a Jewish religious ceremony being performed towards the end of the film on Birdie's new born baby - Birdie was Felix' sister. The production code which began being enforced in 1934 only allowed Christian rituals to be shown. Another unusual element of the film - Jessica as Felix' love interest although she has a noticeably curved spine. Jessica teaches blind children and acts as Felix' link to his past and his once virtuous goals. It's almost like in the cartoons when you see a character with an angel on one shoulder whispering in one ear and a devil in the other. Jessica plays the part of the angel here, Magnus is the devil - however he's a smart enough devil to always send his mother as his mouthpiece. Who would say no to mom?