Plots(1)
Adapted by Arnold Perl from his 1953 Off-Broadway play, The World of Sholom Aleichem was first broadcast on December 14, 1959 on the dramatic anthology series The Play of the Week. This compilation of three different plays was based on the stories of Sholom Aleichem, the famed writer known as the Yiddish Mark Twain. The first play, A Tale of Chelm, features Zero Mostel as a befuddled religious teacher and Nancy Walker as his exasperated wife in a lighthearted tale of a man trying to buy a goat in a town of fools. Bontche Schweig takes place in heaven where the newly deceased Bontche (Jack Gilford) has arrived for judgment. After an angel (Lee Grant) tells the story of his life of strife, Bontche is offered paradise, only to stun the heavenly court with an extraordinary modest request. In the final play, The High School, a Jewish merchant (Morris Carnovsky) is cajoled by his wife (Gertrude Berg) to help prepare their teenage son for high school in spite of quotas designed to limit the number of Jewish students. (official distributor synopsis)
(more)Cast
Morris Carnovsky
USA
Best movies:
Rhapsody in Blue (1945)
Edge of Darkness (1943)
A View from the Bridge (1962)
Charlotte Rae
USA
Best movies:
Hair (1979)
Bananas (1971)
Hello Down There (1969)
Jack Gilford
USA
Best movies:
Save the Tiger (1973)
The Incident (1967)
Catch-22 (1970)
Lee Grant
USA
Best movies:
In the Heat of the Night (1967)
Mulholland Drive (2001)
Detective Story (1951)
Sam Levene
Russian Empire
Best movies:
After the Thin Man (1936)
...And Justice for All (1979)
Action in the North Atlantic (1943)
Zero Mostel
USA
Best movies:
Watership Down (1978)
The Front (1976)
The Enforcer (1951)
Henry Lascoe
USA
Frederick Rolf
German Empire
Best movies:
Producers' Showcase (1954) (series)
Deconstructing Harry (1997)
Witness (1985)