My Father's House
Cast & Crew
Herbert Kline
Ronnie Cohen
Irene Broza
Isaac Danziger
Herman Heuser
Joseph Pacovsky
Film Details
Technical Specs
Synopsis
After his Polish-Jewish family is taken to a Nazi concentration camp, eleven-year-old David is smuggled ashore in Palestine with other refugees. There, he begins a search for his father, who has promised to meet him in the Holy Land after the war. He wanders through the country, passing the potash mines of the Dead Sea, where Jews and Arabs work side by side, and other cities, farms and factories in the desert. During his travels, David is first taken in by a refugee home and then an orphanage, where he is adopted by a kind Jewish family, the father of which claims to be David's uncle. When the boy discovers that he is not really related to the family, however, he runs away to continue his search. He meets a group of Palestians, including Avram, the charismatic leader of a farm collective, and Miriam, a young woman whose husband and child have been killed by the Nazis. Miriam, whose horrific experiences during the war have caused her to retreat emotionally, finds herself renewed by her friendship with David. Finally, David learns that his family perished in the Belgen concentration camp and immediately collapses into a temporary state of infantile amnesia. Avram, realizing that Miriam and David can provide each other with the family they need, conspires to keep the two together. Under her constant care, the boy slowly learns to walk and talk again, and eventually the two decide that they can start a new life together in Palestine.
Director
Herbert Kline
Cast
Ronnie Cohen
Irene Broza
Isaac Danziger
Herman Heuser
Joseph Pacovsky
Zalman Leiviush
R. Klatchkin
Miriam Laserson
Issasschar Finklestein
Israela Epstein
Michael Cohen
Naomi Salzberger
P. Goldman
Y. Adaki
Josef Saadia
Herta Ohrbach
S. Leztvsh
H. Landesdorf
The Palestine Philharmonic Orchestra
The Hazamir Singers Of Tel Aviv
Crew
Film Details
Technical Specs
Quotes
Trivia
Notes
According to the New York Times review, the film began with a foreword stating that the story was intended to explore "the people of Palestine and not its politics." Filmed over six months following World War II, My Father's House was the first narrative feature film to be shot entirely in Palestine, and one of the few films produced there before the establishment of the state of Israel. Producer Herbert Kline was a documentary filmmaker, and producer Meyer Levin was a novelist and screenwriter. Kline and Meyer, who were both Americans, contributed some funding to the $250,000 film, which was also financed and distributed by The Jewish National Fund.
Although most of the film's post-production work occurred in America, the picture was shot entirely in Palestine, including Haifa, Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Galilee, St. George's Cathedral, the Dead Sea, Hebrew University and the Hadassah Hospital. In an October 1947 Theatre Arts article, Levin wrote about the difficult shooting conditions in Palestine. With no film labs in the country, the producers attempted to develop the film in Egyptian labs, but the footage was then confiscated by Cairo officials. Kline was then forced to develop the film in Hollywood and forgo viewing the dailies. Kline spoke no Hebrew and many of the Palestinian actors, most of them non-professionals, could not speak English. Although an April 1948 Los Angeles Times article states that the actors were taught their lines in English by rote, other sources state that the film was dubbed into English later. Threats of violence and demonstrations by the Arab League slowed production, and limited the cast and crew to Jewish participants only. In addition, the controlling British government insisted on approving the script, which forced Meyer to temporarily omit the scene showing illegal immigrants gaining entrance to the country.
Actor Issac (Yitzhak) Danziger, who played "Avram" in the film, was also known for his prize-winning sculpture. While a contemporary article noted that Henry Brant based his original music on native folk tunes, and the Hollywood Reporter review added that "The Palestine Folk Symphony is heard being performed by the Palestine Philharmonic Orchestra," it has not been determined if the symphony is one of the folk tunes on which Brant based his score.
The Variety review reported that American distribution for the film had not yet been set and would probably be accomplished through spot bookings arranged through The Jewish National Fund. After the film's release, Levin wrote a novel based on the film, which Viking published in 1947 under the same title. Although an unidentified and undated news item announced that in 1970, Paramount's television division had purchased the rights to the novel, no further information about a television adaptation has been found.
