[An Unrecorded 1938 Flyer for the Yiddish Film on the Children of the Bund's Medem Sanitorium] Cohn, Charlie, Master of Ceremonies

[FLYER] THE FAMOUS JEWISH TALKIE: CHILDREN MUST LAUGH: MIR KUMEN ON AND AN OUTSTANDING CONCERT WITH ICCHOK FELD… "מיר קומען אָן"

New York: No Publisher [Paramount Mansion?], 1938. Item #43522

1st edition. 5.5x8.5 inches, blue on white photographic flyer in English with Yiddish film title.

The film title, “Mir Kumen On,” can be translated directly as “We are Coming,” though in the US the title was translated as “Children Must Laugh” and in France and Belgium as “Nous Arrivons.” The restored film is viewable online at
www.youtube.com/watch?v=vozD_XbGHGA and was featured at the Museum of Modern Art’s To Save and Project: The 14th MoMA International Festival of Film Preservation in 2016.

“A rare record of Jewish life in Poland before World War II, this 1936 film [Children Must Laugh] was produced in several language versions as an international fundraiser for the Medem Sanatorium near Warsaw, a clinic sponsored by the General Union of Jewish Workers [the Bund] that provided care and an escape from urban poverty for some 10,000 children between 1926 and 1939. Directed in a Soviet-influenced style by Alexander Ford, a committed Communist who later became the head of Poland’s National Film School, the film follows three children as they gradually overcome their emotional withdrawal and distrust and enter the communal life of the institution” (MoMA, 2016).

Full text:

Sunday, Sept. 18, 1938
8 o’clock in the evening
At Paramount Mansion
St. Nicholas Ave and 183rd Street
Bronx, New York
The famous Jewish Talkie
CHILDREN MUST LAUGH
“[MIR KUMEN ON”]
And an outstanding
CONCERT
WITH
ICCHOK FELD
AND HIS COMPANY FROM
SECOND AVENUE THEATRE
CHARLIE COHN
Master of Ceremonies
Admission 50c.

A massive fundraising campaign for the Medem Sanitorium was undertaken in 1937-38 and the film was shown internationally as a way to build support and solicit funds.
We were able to locate no copies using OCLC nor with a google search. Apparently an unrecorded promotional flyer for a very important film.

Near Fine Condition. Important, displayable, and exceedingly rare. (PBERL-1-10-XX).

Price: $150.00