Tkies khaf
About Tkies khaf
In Vilna, Khaim and Borekh vow that their future children will marry. Years later the prophet Elijah, played by Zygmunt Turkow in several disguises, works to make the oath hold. Borekh's friend Shmuel tries to marry Khaim's daughter Rokhl and to keep Khaim's hidden money.
Cast & crew
More about Tkies khaf
Zygmunt Turkow directed after Leo Forbert could not get Sidney M. Goldin, who was busy on another film. Turkow, already cast as Elijah, took the job. Henryk Bojm wrote the screenplay from Peretz Hirschbein's 1907 play Der Tkies-kaf and S. An-sky's The Dybbuk. Seweryn Steinwurzel photographed it. Ester Rachel Kamińska plays Khaim's widow, and her daughter Ida Kamińska plays Rokhl. Domestic prints used Polish intertitles. Prints sent abroad used Yiddish.
Themes
Background
Forbert and Bojm made the film with players from the Varshiver Yidisher Kunst Teater in mind, among them Turkow and the Kamińskas.
Reviews
Some Jewish critics attacked it, and rabbis objected to the Gaon's tomb being filmed.
Audiences
It did well enough commercially to encourage further Jewish films in Poland.
Look
Seweryn Steinwurzel photographed the Vilna settings, including the Gaon's tomb.
Preservation
Partially lost. Fragments of the twelve-reel film survive.
Notes
- The Yiddish title means "the handshake." The Polish title, Ślubowanie, means "the oath.
- Some listings give February 26, 1924, rather than May 1924.
- The film runs twelve reels. Only fragments survive.
- Showing the tomb of the Vilna Gaon led rabbis to try to ban the picture.
- An American reworking, Dem Rebns Koyekh (1933), added scenes and a Yiddish narration spoken by Joseph Buloff.
Influenced by
- Der Tkies-kaf
- The Dybbuk
Also available
- Internet Archive (silent-tkies-khaf)