Jewish stereotype on DVD version

Just a couple of comments: in the 1970s after Harold Lloyd died, his estate leased the rights to some of his films (including Safety Last!) to the Time-Life organization. They distributed new versions of these films to theaters, and, later, made them available on home video. These editions featured excessive sound effects and music that was occasionally too modern-sounding. Someone also saw fit to chop out a number of sequences featuring racial and ethnic stereotypes. I saw some of these versions at the time, and found them irritating.

I first saw Safety Last! at a public screening in NYC about twenty years ago. Happily, it was an original print of the film, shown with live music. During the scene in the pawnshop with the Jewish proprietor there was a gasp or two, and maybe some embarrassed laughter, but viewers who go to these films tend to accept this material as part of the popular culture of the era when they were made. I think it's more offensive to cut these scenes than to show them, and if the Time-Life people didn't think modern viewers could handle it they should have invested their money elsewhere instead of acting as censors.

Incidentally, there were plenty of silent comedies that featured Jewish stereotypes. Chaplin's films of the mid-1910s come to mind, such as Police, The Vagabond, Easy Street and The Pawnshop, just to name a few. Oh, and W.C. Fields encounters a heavily made-up Hassidic man during a traffic jam in Manhattan in It's the Old Army Game. There are lots of other examples . . .

[deleted]

Apparently in the original 1933 version of the Disney classic cartoon short The Three Little Bigs, one of the ways the big bad wolf was trying to connive his way into the house the pigs built was by disguising himself as a Yiddish accented door to door peddler, typical enough of the time and not in itself mean-spirited, the Disney organization later removed the accent and all ethnic characteristics, may even have edited those scenes or redrawn them. I'd love to see the unedited version.

Keystone had quite a few shorts with Jewish stereotypes, they often have Cohan in the title. Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle occasionally played Cohan. BTW - Arbuckle also played a Jewish bride in one movie, I think the title was "Rebecca's Wedding Day".

There were also Yiddish language films that I think were made in New York.

Prior to WW2, it was acceptable and expected to portrait jewish people under these circumstances. In this particular case, it served the story, as we see Harold is now out of money - and the selling character should not appear too friendly, so the dilemma is less obvious.

I watched it fully again for the first time in some years (except from seeing the climbing sequence some other times), and I could not help but laugh at it. "Oh boy, it's 1920s isn't it, here's the racist stereotype (along with the scared, dumb black man).


"You keep him in here, and make sure HE doesn't leave!"

This was the 1920's. The film is a reflection of its time period.

Schrodinger's cat walks into a bar, and / or doesn't.