"An Uproarious
Knockout! -- A Thousand Laughs!"
Well. That was a right laugh! I hadn’t high hopes to be
perfectly honest, having just completed a small tour of the half-dozen or so
Irish bars between Liverpool Central Station and Lime Street (karaoke city mate
and if you’re still sober by midday they kick you out) but this plastic paddy needn’t
have worried. This film is far more sensitive than you’d expect and is more
about the character’s than their ethnicity and certainly not their religion. It’s
not especially deep but it’s heart-warming and imbued with the message
Hollywood repeats over and over again: we simply must learn to get on with each
other.
Head of Irish Film Programming, Sunniva O’Flynn, introduced
and explained that this was the film that kicked off an seven-film franchise
during which the Cohens and Kellys found themselves variously in Paris (1928), in Atlantic City (1929), in
Scotland (1930), in Africa (1930),
in Hollywood (1932), in Trouble (1933) but, almost never in
agreement. These kinds of stereotypes were well known by audiences at the time
and accepted as being a celebration of recognisable community types by a wide
audience and, indeed the film did well with both Irish and Jewish audiences.
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| Charles Murray and Kate Price |
You can understand why the series worked with the four
leads being so strong and it’s still funny helped in no small measure by the
most agile of live scores that mixed both Irish and Jewish Folk music traditions
often at the same time along with jazz and Klezmer. The players not only
watched the film, they synched music and musical effects precisely with the
action: this was a score rehearsed to within a sprocket hole of perfection.
The quartet featured multi-award-winning Irish accordionist
Dermot Dunne, saxophonist Nick Roth (of the Yurodny Ensemble), improvising
violinist Cora Venus Lunny and cellist Adrian Mantu (from the RTÉ ConTempo
Quartet). There were times when Cora scratched her strings or bowed atonally to
mimic the dogs and Adrian did the same in tandem with Dermot and Nick to replicate
speech patterns or rather an argument. The music was building on top of the images
and with such vivid character on screen it worked exceptionally well: it’s rare
to hear a score that gets as many laughs as the film but it deserved it and I
can see both Cohen and Kellys laughing their socks off in rare agreement.
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| George Sidney |
The Cohens and Kellys has been beautifully restored by
the Cinémathèque Royale de Belgique and the IFI Irish Film Archive and the resultant
digital transfer looked fantastic and very “warm”. It was being presented in
partnership with The Irish Film Institute in association with Irish Film
Festival London and UK Jewish Film Festival and the Barbican Cinema 1 was
packed with many Cohens and Kellys not to mention at least one Joyce.
Now the two families are neighbours down in the lower
East-Side on opposite sides of a tenement building, and we’re introduced to the
nature of their relationship as the two family pet dogs fight in the hall to be
soon joined by the youngest sons, Sammy Cohen (Robert Gordon) and Terence Kelly
(Mickey Bennett - who was also in Mary Pickford's Sparrows) two lads who just want to knock each other’s block off.
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| Jason Robarts' Dad |
Their mothers, hearing the racket, come out onto the hall
Mrs. Cohen (Vera Gordon) who is perhaps a potential peacemaker and rather
over-matched by Mrs Kelly (Kate Price from Cork, the only Irish-born player)
who is fearsome indeed. But this fight starts and ends with the heads of the
family, Patrick Kelly (Charles Murray) a policeman (natch) and Jacob Cohen
(George Sidney) a draper (also, natch!) – two stubborn middle-aged tyrants with
little sense of their own ridiculousness.
The exceptions to all of this are the Kelly’s eldest, Tim
(Jason Robards Sr. – yes, that Jason Robart’s dad!) who is completely besotted
with the Cohen’s daughter, Nannie (the rather striking Olive Hasbrouck). Naturally
they keep their romance secret and there’s be hell to pay if either father
finds out which, of course, they will…
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| Olive Hasbrouck |
There’s a funny subplot in which Cohen, his poorstore
overshadowed by two larger ones both of who are discounting, decides to repaint
his signage to say “Main Entrance” which results in a fracas requiring the
attention of a particular police man.
Cohen’s in debt and struggling and tries to avoid a
lawyer, Milton J. Katz (Nat Carr) who is seeking him out. He finally gives himself
away to find he has inherited two million dollars from his Great Aunt… Now
everything changes as the family moves to a mansion seemingly leaving the Kelly’s
all behind but, frustrated by their parents’ intransigence, Nannie and Tim have
got married. Cohen goes through a nightmare of feints and stress-gurning and is
sent away to recover at a sanatorium. He returns nine months later to find
another Cohen now in the house, one who is also a Kelly!
The families who can’t avoid each other are now forced
together in ways they had not expected and someone needs to find a way to make
it work. Luckily there’s a crooked lawyer and unexpected complications to
finally bring out the best.
Harold A. Pollard directs with skill, alighting on every
argument without telegraphing intent any more than necessary. There is some
lovely fluid camera work from Charles Stumar – very European which occasionally
made me think of Emil Jannings playing Mr Cohen… with lots of pullbacks as the
Cohens or, indeed, the Kellys absorbed the latest outrageous twist of fortune.
It was funny in 2018 and funnier in 1926 but this is how
our great grand uncles and aunts laughed at themselves and the enduring obsession
with things not being as they should be. In the end, kick back and if you have
to row make sure you always make up.
So, raise a glass: l'chaim and sláinte to us all!
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| A shot of the rehearsal shared by the Irish Film Institute |
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