When is a Jewish mother not a Jewish Mother? When she doesn't act just like Molly Goldberg, the heroine of a popular radio and television comedy, The Goldbergs, in the first half of the 20th century. Aviva Kempner's informative documentary about the life of Gertrude Berg, who played Molly, is more a survey of radio and TV culture at that time than an insightful probe into the life of one of broadcasting's pioneer women.
Kempner's ability to weave in segments from shows, videos, interviews, and archival photographs puts the audience into the creative hotbed of the Depression through the post-WWII '50's. No one, not even Zero Mostel, can steal the stage from the affectionate, strong-willed character and actress (indeed, the two seem the same, so thoroughly did Berg develop Molly from within herself and her life).
Remarkably, Berg also wrote all the shows, a precursor of the all-in-one writer, producer, and actor talents of later generations. Perhaps because of her assimilation into the character of Molly, the film is unable to penetrate the character of the real Gertrude, although I suspect the two sides of Gertrude are just that character. The documentary comments on Berg's sometimes tyrannical off-stage persona, and it does a reasonably good job showing the sacrifices she made to defend her radio and TV husband, Phillip Loeb, from accusations of Red Channels that he was a communist. That conflict and the decision, not hers, to locate the TV show from the Bronx to the suburbs, helped the closing of her career.
It is probable that the notion of the benign, caring Jewish mother, was shaped in part by Gertrude Berg. It is almost certain she was a force behind the TV sitcom paradigm and the emergence of Lucille Ball as the new model of modern TV housewife-comedienne.
Yoo-Hoo is a winning history lesson in broadcasting and women in all media.
