Skokie (1981) Online

To me, this was an excellent movie. This was one of my favorite movies of all time. Forget Schindler's list, to me this movie was a much better in certain aspects for emotion. One of the best scenes in this motion picture (one that in the 4 minutes it takes to play invokes more emotion from me as the viewer than all Schindler's list) is where Danny Kaye as Max Feldman answers his daughter's question about what happened to her grandparents. Max and his wife - holocaust survivors, have kept the horrors of the camps from their daughter. She has very little knowledge of what happened and at 13 or 14 she asks questions. Danny Kaye (Max) takes the time (against his wife's wishes) to finally tell his daughter. The strength and power of this single scene rests with the unemotional and matter of fact way that Max explains the nature of the death camp to his daughter. No emotion on the part of Max - - the character is breaking up inside yet is telling his daughter what the Nazis did to his parents in a manner to spare her the emotion. This while his wife is listening from around the corner quietly falling to pieces. You know the deep emotion that he has with the issues when he attends a meeting to discuss the question of Nazi's marching in Skokie with the vehemence and passion he holds on the issue. Yet he holds back this emotion with his daughter. Like I said, this few minutes of the movie is more powerful than the total Schindler's list - in my opinion. The full movie has its flaws, and covers the 1st amendment issues of American Nazi's right to march in detail, covering all sides of the issue. But this is a powerful movie and shows the depth of Danny Kaye's acting talents. A very surprising made for television movie about a very interesting topic. It is well done and very unlike Hollywood today.

One day in November 1980 my mother phoned my Chicago office. She had read a newspaper report about a call for TV movie extras being held that evening at a Skokie auditorium. The proposed film, titled Skokie, would detail the late 1970's effort by the Chicago suburb to prevent a march in its large Jewish community by a neo-Nazi group. Although I then lived in Skokie, I had only heard about the commotion through the media.

I fantasized about starring in a movie despite having no acting experience other than grade school plays. Having accumulated much vacation time I was able to take off from work. So I attended the call not knowing what exactly to expect. The long lines moved rather quickly. The interview itself was short, and people were preferred who simply could fit and dress themselves for the part. For example, in real life I was a lawyer, so they assigned me to a court room scene where I played a second assistant attorney.

Extras had no speaking role, but you can see me sitting near Eli Wallach for about 10 minutes, which shoot took two days at a courthouse in Evanston, Illinois. Between takes, extras observed the intricate technical proceedings and got to chat with many of the cast and crew on the set. Makeup was frequently applied to our faces covering up five o'clock shadow or sweat. We were fed a light breakfast and full lunch, but dinner hour came and went. Certain actors kept forgetting their lines, tempers flared as the evening wore on. At the end of the first day as we were reminded to wear the same clothes for the next day's finish, one man jokingly asked if we could at least change our underwear.

Several of us extras, especially those who were prompt and didn't complain about the long schedules, were asked to be in additional scenes. I appeared in two town meeting sequences filmed in a Skokie synagogue, and in a political rally where we sang patriotically in front of the actual Skokie village hall. Skokie's mayor visited us and greeted the actor portraying him, Ed Flanders, later Dr. Westphall of St. Elsewhere. Many extras were in fact concentration camp survivors living in Skokie. There was an authentic intensity underlying the crowd scenes so the "acting" seemed for real.

When I first viewed the movie, telecast on CBS in 1981, I focused strictly on searching for myself. Only mom recognized me at every shot even catching one I missed. My other family and friends concentrated on the story. Using a Betamax I taped the program, eventually putting it away with my other mementos. In 2003, while browsing a video store, I discovered the Skokie DVD and snatched the two shelf copies. I found the disc quality superb and located every semblance of my younger self. In comparison I played the tape and was shocked at how badly it had deteriorated. DVDs are hoped to have a longer life.

Of course the movie Skokie has its flaws. But in retrospect the melodramatic moments seem very true. The film illustrates the dangers to yourself when the rights of others are assaulted. Experiencing Skokie, I felt aware. Watching Skokie, so might you.

He could have his pick of them but this is the only film role Danny Kaye took after a 12 year retirement of sorts.

He managed to sandwich in Skokie amid a slew of TV specials, tributes, and various other glorified career retrospectives. It would be his last significant work before the cameras, and it proved to be some of his finest.

The subject matter may seem corny or outdated to a young person, but not to anyone who knows the dark side of history the Nazis created.

And now here in a land where liberal communist sympathizers had been attacked at every turn for decades by the authorities, the conservative neo-Nazi party was enjoying a blind eye being turned to them. They were allowed to run rampant, particularly in America's East, and specifically in Illinois.

The cast, including the late Mr. Kaye, Kim Hunter, Ed Flanders and Lee Strasberg, is excellent and all turn in the fine performances that one would expect of actors of their sterling talent.

Naturally the old racist line turns up that goes "the only trouble with Hitler is that he didn't finish the job." But yes, that fact actually did mean not only "trouble" for his party, it meant the downfall of his entire regime - as well as the echoes of it here in America. Do not ignore the past, Skokie is saying, lest our apathy be mistaken for weakness.

These days, though, two decades after Skokie was filmed, we're keeping a much closer eye on Oregon than Illinois, but the message is the same - maintain constant vigilance upon those who would hide behind the Constitution in order to further the sickness of bigotry.

One of the better TV movies ever made about a current political issue. The issues are dramatized vividly - freedom of assembly vs. the rights of a community. The performances are consistently excellent. I would especially cite Danny Kaye, whose portrayal of quivering outrage is one of the great moments of his wonderful career. I was interested to read about the career of the screenwriter, Ernest Kinoy. Among his many credits are a couple of episodes of the excellent short-lived series "The Senator" (part of "The Bold Ones"), very much a "ripped from the headlines" series. So too with this movie.

Deep thinkers will be fascinated, appalled and intrigued, all those reactions at the same time, with "Skokie", movie based on a true story that for the most part we wished it could be an very imaginative fiction. It retells the events surrounding an American Nazist group who decided to march on the streets of Skokie, a town whose majority of habitants consists of Jewish people, most of them Holocaust survivors. If only the story would stop right there because you already have one major conflict to give your food for thought.

There's a whole tension involved, politically specially, since the town's mayor is trying to make anything to secure his citizens that such march won't occur and if it does happen no violence will take place. The Nazi leader (George Dzundza) says it's his right as an American citizen to have his free speech; the Jewish community are really afraid of such atrocious act, harmful enough just in being thought about it; and they already made clear that if that march occur they won't stand there peacefully, they'll react against it with all of their forces. As one of the most respected leaders (Danny Kaye) says: "We'll attack them with baseball bats!".

The case goes to court where it will be decided if such rally is valid or not and if hurts the freedom of speech rights. This is where the story gets really interesting, unbelievable yet it's the truth, one of those life ironies that can't be easily understood: the American Nazi's decided to file a lawsuit against the Jewish community of Skokie by calling on their behalf the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) to help them, and they're getting represented by a Jewish lawyer (John Rubinstein) who firmly believes that the law must be respected above all, he sees that there is interference with free speech and he decides to go forward with this process, which goes against what most of his associates think, creating a difficult problem in the union since the majority of people who support them are Jewish just like him and they wouldn't want to be known as the ones who defended people who go against everything they are and stand for.

Only with such plot and presentation of facts "Skokie" would already be something to be seen. But the cast makes it more involving, a true must-see. Carl Reiner, Eli Wallach and Brian Dennehy are great in the supporting roles, and veteran Lee Strasberg steals the show with just one scene in one of his final performances. But the main focus of our attention is comic Danny Kaye, playing a dramatic role of many dimensions, a man who went through a lot in his life, only trying to live peacefully but when hearing about the rally he's very vocal against it, and decides he won't tolerate that. Some find his performance a little over-the-top but it's not. It's very effective, one of the greatest things about this film.

Here's a quality TV film, very well made and with plenty of things to say about ethics, laws interpretations (they're never so black and white/right or left as one can imagine it is). The whole argument of what free speech really is and the rights of certain groups against others, it's very provoking to see and deal with it. 10/10

Danny Kaye again showed his talents as a brilliant dramatic actor in this 1981 television movie.

He plays a Holocaust survivor who has settled in Skokie, Illinois after the war. Skokie has become a predominantly Jewish town and the serenity of the area is threatened with the Nazi garbage threatening to march through the town to cause the reopening of nightmarish wounds, fear and trepidation among the Jewish citizenry of the town.

As the spokesman, Kaye conveys those fears but is adamant that the garbage shall not march. His voice is etched with unbelievable feeling as he will do anything in his power to thwart the threatened march.

As the Nazi leader leading such a march, George Dzundza is quite effective as Nazi Frank Collin. Filled with hatred, and contempt for humanity, Dzundza also etched an unforgettable character. Of course, the picture belongs to Kaye and he received an Emmy nomination for best actor for it.

There is only so much that an afflicted people can take- 1st amendment rights or not.

In Danny Kaye's career (despite what is said on this thread) he made two dramatic and one half dramatic performances in movies. The half dramatic performance was in the film ME AND THE COLONEL, a comedy with Curt Jurgens based on a play by Franz Werfel, JACOBOWSKI UND DER OBERST (JACOBOWSKI AND THE COLONEL) about a Jew and and anti - Semitic Polish officer fleeing Warsaw in 1941 to avoid death by the Nazis. Though it has funny moments in it, the threat of Nazi brutality, and Jurgens slow change to respect and friendship for the Jewish Kaye actually made the story serious. Similarly Kaye's performance in THE MADWOMAN OF CHALLOT was also serious, as his big scenes dealt with the loss of the individual personalities of the different sections of Paris (as shown in their distinct garbage - he is a rag picker) and in his demonic (no better way of describing it) performance as the symbolic defender of the villains of the piece, on trial for their lives.

SKOKIE was Kaye's final movie (not his last appearance on television). It was a major performance - this time in center stage and no clowning involved. It returned to the subject matter of JACOBOWSKI, but brought it up to date.

It was based on a notorious incident of the late 1970s in Illinois. A resurgence of the American Nazi Party decided to have a march, and for added interest (as well as putting salt on wounds) it was marching not in Chicago but in a quiet area near the city called Skokie, which was where a large number of Jews - many European survivors and refugees of the Holacaust - lived. The Jews in the community were angered by this move, and fought it. But, after court action, the march was allowed. However, when the Nazis came to march they found hundreds of Jews on all sides of the street glaring at them. They completed the march, but the Nazis were thoroughly unnerved by the experience.

Kaye is one of the survivors of the original Nazis and their activities in the 1940s. He is absolutely opposed to this march - he becomes the most outspoken opponent of it. He knows what quiet acquiescence to this garbage means - the Jews in Europe were quiet, too quiet, and it cost six million lives. The pressures of the re-occurrence hits his family, as his wife (Kim Hunter) also a survivor, begins collapsing under the strain - she's reliving the nightmare all over again. She feels it can happen here, and Kaye is determined that it shall not.

George Dzunga is the local Nazi leader, who carefully planned the choice of Skokie to give the maximum hurt to the Jews he could. He also chooses the attorneys of the American Civil Liberties Union to represent his "fight for freedom of speech" argument. And to add icing to his evil, he chooses John Rubenstein, a Jewish - American attorney at the A.C.L.U. to be his attorney.

Rubenstein and his mentor Eli Wallach are confronting the situation, but determined to do what their organization sees as it's role - safeguard the Bill of Rights against all attacks. And, as I said at the start of this review, they do win the court victory, but the Nazis find the victory more unsettling than they expected.

The film also demonstrated something that is not usually discussed when dealing with the A.C.L.U. That organization always pushes the envelope a bit to make it's point about our rights - and sometimes goes beyond common sense. In a mostly secular America, some Christmas crèches don't have to be taken away because they violate church and state (if the A.C.L.U. actually believes in separation on that issue, why not demand that Christmas be returned to a solely Christian holiday rather than allow the courts and government buildings being closed - obviously their membership benefit by the holiday as well - I think they call that hypocrisy?).

Inevitably when you are defending "rights" you are going to be tramping on people's toes. Most of us don't mind when it is an unpopular or static group (like a business who has some hiring policy that is questionable), but if you see that a large minority is being insulted by a "rights" issue the A.C.L.U. is involved in, you can see why that organization really needs to reevaluate what it is doing. But it won't.

They were defending hate speech here - anti - Semitic material that Hitler would have been proud of. The A.C.L.U. would have said that our right to free speech is universal. But if that is true, the speech is unlimited - and I don't feel that that was the original intention. If the Skokie marchers had been met by thousands of hidden supporters, who were armed and went on a rampage of killing Jews afterward, the fine idea of defending such speech would have been meaningless. And just because it did not happen, does not mean that it can't.

The film tackled this as well. Both Rubenstein and Eli Wallach face a double whammy in the course of the story. Both are Jews, and neither really love their client. It's their duty to do what they do for the Bill of Rights. But then the A.C.L.U. coffers suffered. Many Jews had been contributors until Skokie happened - now they felt obliged not to because it was taking a "pro-Nazi" stand. The A.C.L.U. would suffer financially for years for this blunder. Then the Skokie residence countered by a demand to know if the A.C.L.U. was denying the Holacaust occurred (as the Nazis claimed). Although they win the case, they realize they have lost tremendous credibility with former supporters.

SKOKIE was a pretty fine movie - and well worth watching. It also leaves the issue of whether Free Speech is unlimited or not open even as the film ends.

George Dzundza who ironically would be playing many Jewish roles later on in his career plays an American Nazi Party leader who is looking for a little headline grabbing. What to do, but stage a march and stage it in a town that has a large Jewish population, Skokie, Illinois, suburb of Chicago.

The film Skokie is an account of the famous incident that never was because in the end Dzundza and his mouth breathers decide after all they didn't want to march in that "Jew town" anyway. But the question of his right to march, to assemble was in fact a constitutional issue. And the American Civil Liberties Union took on as it did this most unpopular of causes. The man who did it was John Rubinstein playing an attorney of the Jewish faith.

What the film does demonstrate is the reaction to this publicity stunt from various people. The mayor of Skokie Ed Flanders is righteously offended and also mindful of his large Jewish constituency. The city attorney Eli Wallach who happens to be Jewish as well is eager to try any legal means to keep them out, but he also realizes the free speech and freedom of assembly issues. He and Rubinstein are finely matched pair of adversaries. Police Chief Brian Dennehy just wants to make sure public order is maintained without bloodshed.

There are several generations of Jews in the town and they're deeply read in their culture, the young ones. But for Danny Kaye and Kim Hunter this is up close and personal. They are survivors of the camps and well remember what they didn't do back in the day and how friends, family, and neighbors paid when the Holocaust came. No one carrying that symbol of hate is going to march in their town, the hell with the American Civil Liberties Union.

Skokie as it records the famous controversy in 1977 is finely cast and well crafted and could have also been a big screen theatrical release film. I wish it was in fact. Everyone should see this film.

This marked the final feature film appearance of Danny Kaye whose last two roles, Skokie and The Madwoman Of Chaillot showed a fine dramatic talent that more than hints came out in such films as Me And The Colonel and The Five Pennies. We should have seen more of it, but Kaye was way too good a clown to keep that talent under wraps.

Skokie is a must see film, a great tribute to the town and the people who were united in never seeing these people soil their fair city.

If you are a lawyer or a judge that is interested in a documentary movie that talks about a case and what happened, this you will like Skokie. There really isn't any great acting in it, in fact a lot of the dialogue of Kaye is cheesy and overly dramaiszed. Most roles are one dimensional and overplayed, but the director did convey the message of the trial and the consequences that followed.

If you need to do a report on the Skokie trial, and you want your research to be somewhat entertaining then this movie may serve you a very good purpose, other than that I wouldn't recommend it.