Mamele

Directed by Joseph Green

Mamele embraces the entire gamut of interwar Jewish life in Lodz--tenements and unemployed Jews, nightclubs and gangsters, religious Jews celebrating sukkot--but the film belongs to Molly Picon who romps undaunted through her dutiful daughter role saving siblings, keeping the family intact, singing and acting her way through the stages of a woman's life from childhood to old age.