Cagney Speaks Yiddish
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- Опубліковано 14 жов 2024
- In this scene from TAXI! (1932), cabbie James Cagney helps a confused cop (Robert Emmett O'Connor) deal with an agitated Jewish man speaking Yiddish.
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I love this line; “And what part of Ireland did your folks come from?” “Delancey Street, thank you.”
Great joke, great delivery
@@jemert96
And with an Irish accent
everyone here only subconsciously is missing just how flawless cagney always is...he never fails to be believed. ..only man I ever saw on screen who always was THERE...look at that smile ...we were recipients of a great great gift
You are so right (even 2 years later!) - that is the essence of great acting - the ability to suspend the viewer’s belief - complete believability. Cagney had it in spades and it’s why he was so darn watchable!
@@frankmachin5438
Still is!!
Absolutely! 👏👏👏
Many years ago, when I briefly worked with Al Pacino, he talked with me a few times and mentioned Cagney and Alan Ladd as two of his favorites.
ebaylistentomusic yeah Ladd was great in those films with Veronica Lake: This Gun for Hire, The Glass Key and The Blue Dahlia. I thought Bogart shone brightly on the screen too - like Cagney you couldn’t take your eyes off him. Worked with Pacino? You lucky SOB!
My Dad met Mr Cagney in a fish market in New York in the 1950s.He was a gentleman and
spoke to him for near on twenty minutes.
My ex-wife's late mother (died in 1978) worked at the Howard Johnson's on Main street in Poughkeepsie, New York. It's third hand info but the ex said that her mother served him many times. Not far from the HJ was a bar called The Dutch Cabin which was owned by Marge Zimmerman who was Cagney's business manager. There was a big portrait of Cagney above the fireplace and I always wondered why, then I found out about the connection.
Cagney's timing was perfect, one of the greatest actors of any generation! Comedy, drama, whatever!
5610winston My husband ( from Brooklyn) says Cagney picked it up when he worked in the Garment District in Manhattan .Can anyone verify ?
Glad that I can go to u tube and see Cagney's talents. Thancxxx
I think it's cool the way Cagney can speak Yiddish. And that cheeky, spunky attitude of his comes through -- a lovable personality.
The man speaking in Yiddish is Joe Barton. The IMDB was FINALLY corrected last year giving Mr. Barton his credit in this film !
Yay!!!!!
he said the cop had a "goyisha cup" 😅
He called him a Goyishe kopf translated as “Gentile Head” or stupid Gentile. And he was saying “A policeman Shayna, shayna, (pretty policeman)” at one point he said “ikh habbe a bruder a schlep zeyn, a zeyn doktor, a dentist” and he admonished the cop for not speaking the mama loshen haha Yiddish. He asked Cagney “Yiddisher Yung? (You’re a Jewish kid?)” and Cagney said “Vos den a sheygetz? Khap Zakrain!! (What else, a gentile? Come on and get in). And of course Ikh Farshtey is I understand hahaha sorry I’m a linguist I don’t mean to be condescending, just translating
@@langkarenga3233 Thanks. I could only understand a little of it. I noticed a definite similarity of some of the words to German.
My father died in 1979. He grew up in a Yiddish speaking household on the Lower East Side. He would have LOVED this.
@Wes McGee HI Wes I'm Irish,thought you'd like to know McGee means Son Of the Wind.
I am as Irish as they come (married name is German). I worked for a Jewish doctor and his wife in the 80s. When they argued, which was often, they spoke Yiddish. It was cute actually. He died in 1993 and less than 6 months later she did. I am sure they are still arguing. Best employers I ever had.
Maybe he did see this movie.
Any chance you speak Yiddish? I would love to know the full translation of this.
My mother grew up in a Jewish section then of Boston, Roxbury and my father also grew up in a Jewish section Dorchester. Cagney had immense talent.
cagney grew up on the lower east side of manhattan and most of his friends were jewish immigrant kids. he spoke perfect Yiddish
But the guy screaming in Yiddish was very thick accented.He told The cop his brother was a dentist, a dentist who pulls teeth. Then he told Cagney his wife was coming to Ellis Island with 3 kids. Cagney told him to hop in!..Maurice H Bank
LOL.
The old saying is that everyone in New York is at least somewhat Jewish.
There was actually a story that that the Warner Brothers would have private meeting in Yiddish, and when the first negotiated with Cagney, he was able to join there side meetings.
Is scholptzean dentist?
Oh that impish grin!! Cagney certainly was unique! Yes, he spoke Yiddish fluently thanks to growing up in a Yiddish-speaking Jewish neighborhood in NYC. And most of his roles were tuff guys from those same streets of NY, but Cagney's favorite place was his large working farm in upstate NY where he raised horses and other livestock. He was a cultured man and later in his career had his own film production company that produced several films that his brother and sister also starred in. Cagney was also an anomaly for big stars of the day as far as his personal relationships in that he was happily married to the same woman until he died. His greatest regret was that he couldn't have starred in more movies that allowed him to dance ( which he loved) as he was constantly type-cast by the studios as a gangster. But he was able to sneak a little dancing into several non- musical movie scenes, and did star in a couple of full musicals. What a talent!
Meh, not "fluently." Don't exaggerate.
My grandmother lived next to the railroad tracks. She heard Cagney was going to go by on his way from Seattle to Portland. She stood there in her faded dress with her kids. Cagney was on the platform on the back of the train waving. He saw my grandma and threw her a kiss, which thrilled her. He grew up in poverty so he could relate to dirt-poor Okies. It was probably a kiss to all the moms who sacrifice to raise their kids.
Did he have class, or what? Really, what an amazing person he was.
That's so sweet.
I can visualize your lovely Grandma.
Cagney’s talents and timing on all fronts were amazing. He was so transparent. Absolutely wonderful!
Facts💯
My family has a similar story. In the 60s, my great grandpa was driving along a freeway in California. He got pulled over for having a light out or something. The cop, a black man, came up to the window. My great grandpa thought he was safe to indulge in a bit of grumbling in Yiddish. Nope! That cop answered right back in Yiddish, giving my great grandpa the surprise of his life. He was thrilled, and told that story many times with big grin.
Everybody here should know James Cagney was universally beloved. Nary an ill word was said about him. I know somebody whose father on a whim drove up to Cagney's New York farm with a friend just to see what would happen.. Cagney talked with them for an hour or so. Try that with today's so-called stars.
Fat chance! The really great ones knew who made them great and I think they enjoyed the opportunities to spend some time with people who made an effort to treat them as more than just an "idol", but as good people.
What you said is true, but it would have been worth it to hear him get angry too - "All right you dirty mugs, you listen and you listen good... I don't know who ya think ya are hanging around here, but it's over see... yeah, that's right, over. I ain't gonna take no more... so you better lamm it outta here and make it snappy ya hear, otherwise I'll fill ya so full a holes momma can use ya for a new colander."
@@56squadron Dang it but that's good. But can you say it tap dancing down stairs?!? LOL!
He was so attractive!
@@mirden1953 I dunno. I think he looks sorta crusty, like me...does that mean I'm attractive too?
--don't answer that, my dear! LOL!
Just when I thought there couldn't be any more to love about Cagney, I see this.
I love it!! What a mensch. If you’re a true New Yorker, you know a little Yiddish. Just one more reason to love and admire Mr. Cagney.
Not just New York. I grew up in Central Jersey, and my vocabulary is seasoned with Yiddish idioms.
Tickle my pickle.
@@DonaldWMeyers-dwm Love it!!
My father grew up in a Jewish area of the Bronx. I never heard him speak any Yiddish, but I remember going into Jewish delis with him and he knew his way around like a Kosher food inspector. And him a Knights of Columbus. He got me to like halvah, but not sliced herring in sour cream.
@@RRaquello I grew up in a Jewish neighborhood in Queens. I learned some Yiddish words there.
There's always more of this guy to love.
I grew up as a huge Cagney fan. I love this clip.
How come everybody missed the punchline???? The guy says:
"You know how to get to Ellis Island?" Cagney responds: "Whadday
think I am, a shagetz?" (a non-Jewish man, vs. a non-Jewish girl, a
shicksa, which everyone knows) and motions into the back of the cab.
It's a brilliant double-twist joke, probably improvised, because Cagney couldn't, in fact, be more of a shagetz.
Atiboyful, Glinkling Smearnops, Morris Schwartz I'm second generation, grew up in a Yiddish-speaking home,
and had many older Yiddish-speaking immigrant relatives who came over from the Old Country (Ukraine and Poland) before WWI. I lived on St.Marks place (E.8th St.) from 1981 -1988. I'm a 60s guy, so hung out in the east Village and Alphabet City with my broke-ass, tub-in-the-kitchen hippie buddies from 1965 onward.
As a native New Yorker from Brooklyn, I just wanna say that
on the day I was born, my mother's water broke on the sidewalk in front of Nathan's Famous Hot Dogs, in Coney Island...right after she finished downing a Nathan's dog, Nathan's french fries (best in the world), and an ear of hot corn. Raised as a Brooklyn Dodgers fan…
That's great! Love your comments. And Nathan's!
I don't speak Yiddish but did catch shagetz. Live in NJ and worked in NY for many years so know a few words.
I think if you know German you can get a lot of Yiddish. I know a little bit of German, and I caught a few words from what the Jewish guy was saying, but only words. Couldn't understand whole sentences.
The only time I was at Nathan's in Coney Island, I was 6 years old in 1961 and couldn't see over the counter on what, Surf Avenue? And yes, the French fries are the best in the world.
Can you give us the full translation? It seems like they said more than that.
Raised as a Brooklyn Dodgers fan… ME TOO.
I just love seeing this over and over. Cagney is marvelous, and so lovable speaking Yiddish. My heart runs over for him. A real mensch!!
Jimmy Cagney is still the greatest Actor of all time . An unbelievable talent.
Orson Welles shares your high opinion of Cagney's acting chops! 😁
pinz2022: It's "Nolan" not "Knowland". The Irish cop obviously knows the Cagney character and knows the cabbie's last name to be "Nolan", a stereotypically Irish name. Therein lies the joke. The part of Ireland Nolan's folks came from was Delancy St., NYC, center of the NYC Jewish immigrant community. We can thank not only Cagney but the Jewish script writer for this lovely bit of melting pot humor.
Never heard of Knowland, where U live though the was Knoss, Knauss, Knox, Knopf, Knapf, Knopf, and Zopf.
@@willg4802 meh
@@willg4802 In its time it was hilarious. Our culture has changed.
@@willg4802 I guess you'd prefer films that appeal to ignorant uneducated trailer-park idiots--like you.
@@willg4802 No. I'm sure lots of people don't like me, and that's their privilege. I wouldn't necessarily say they're bad. But when you use an insulting term like "Jooz" to refer to a whole group of people that have been discriminated against for centuries, that tends to make me think you're a bigot. And yeah, bigots are bad.
R.I.P. James.The likes of you will never pass this way again.👏👏👏👏👏
This has got to be one of best GEMS I have seen on UA-cam. I am third generation Jewish and know enough Yiddish as my parents spoke Yiddish to understand it all. Simply GREAT and wonderful comedy. EXCELLENT my father and mother would have loved it.
Me too Natalie. Dad was from Warsaw and spoke it all the time!😊...Maurice HBank
You are 3rd generation American surely Your Jewishness goes back much much further than that
@@stevecarlson6462 So funny. I actually got bits and pieces of the Jewish man's Yiddish. I knew he had a brother who would be coming to Ellis Island and he wanted to go there. But the best part was Jimmy Cagney speaking Yiddish and the end when the cop asks him where in Ireland he came from and Cagney says in a Yiddish accent Delancy Street! Great UA-cam!
@Ken Hudson vulcan mind tap?? (if I'm right your welcome)
@Ken Hudson 😃👍
Wonderful, wonderful clip, and really hilarious if you understand a little of what is said. Can't thank you enough for posting this one. Cagney grew up in a neighborhood in Manhattan that was about half Irish and half Jewish and simply picked up the language as he grew up, becoming not just familiar with Yiddish, but actually becoming fluent in it. When asked about that he mentioned the neighborhood, and using a phrase he so often did, remarked that the process of becoming fluent was---No sweat, no strain.
I recall seeing this on TV with my mother, who spoke Yiddish, and she couldn't stop laughing. There is also a follow up moment when Cagney is assaulted by some rival cabbies when the passenger here is in his cab. Cagney gets out to confront the thugs and his passenger fights along with him taking punches at the air and urging on his new best friend with Yiddish phrases.
This was the scene that endeared millions of Jewish people to James Cagney! Cagney, growing up with lots of Jewish friends in New York City,learned Yiddish very quickly! By the way, this scene is from the film Taxi (1932) which is in the Jewish Hall Of Fame for as movies is concerned! I recommend you all to see it and Jimmy actually says "You Dirty Rat" in a long extended way!
James Cagney could play anyone. He was so intelligent and observant. He's earned the term icon.
Dirk Diggler : Mine too! He was so great in here comes the Navy!
Dirk Diggler : Dan I agree with you 1000% he was a genius! Give my regards to Broadway was a childhood favorite of mine they played it every night for a week on a local LA TV station when I was a kid and I think I watched every showing of it he was a genius he could have FARTED in a movie and it would have been a 1,000,000% more talented and meaningful than any crappy actor On the scene Today!
By the way navy had great footage of the USS Macon at the end and that last scene was based on a real incident!
He also was an amazing dancer, very versatile, and he could play any part Hollywood gave him.
@@nealsausen4651 That was an excellent film! Made on the USS Arizona which I'm sure we've all heard of. He is playing the wise ass punk who comes through in the end, just like in 'The Fighting 69th."
Speaking of The Fighting 69th, Father Francis Duffy, chaplain to the 69th is played by Pat O'Brien. In New York City at the North end of Times Square is Duffy Square. There is a statue of Fr. Duffy and he looks just like Pat! Nearby is a statue of George M. Cohan. Guess who he looks like?
What a lovely surprise. Never knew he spoke Yiddish. This is fascinating!!
It is so obvious that Cagney is understanding every word. It’s his visual reacting that we see an believe. Then when it’s his turn, as Cagney says “I just tell the truth”. Great lesson young actors.
I'd always heard that Cagney spoke Yiddish -- awesome
I'd heard that Cagney spoke fluent Yiddish, but, well...there you are. Jimmy Cagney was amazing.
I was born and raised in Queens N.Y. I only got down to the lower East side a couple of times in all my years of living there. I would've liked to have visited it more often. You could find everything and anything that you didn't know you needed. And of course you'd have to haggle over the price with the Jewish shop keepers. Yeah old New Yawk. A city so nice they hadda name it twice! I loved watching old Cagney flicks as a kid. 👍🏻😉
George B ... My Dad and Uncle Walter grew up in the Upper West Side, 172nd and Amsterdam.
Cagney could do it all and here is proof of his great style and timing!
There's also a wonderful little scene in "The Fighting 69th" where Cagney speaks Yiddish to a Jewish soldier in the platoon.
That was Sammy Cohen, a comedian. He told Cagney Allan Hale was the boss, and Cagney replied “ not for my money.”..Maurice H Bank
I LOVE that movie and so few people know it. I had the book, Fighting Fr. Murphy as a kid too. Slow as I am it took me about 4 years to realize it was the same regiment, same war, same battles. lol
*05/03/2020*
ohmightywez
I had it (The Fighting 69th) on VHS, but had a friend transfer it to DVD. That one & Yankee Doodle Dandy & a few others. Even the original The Blob (with Steve McQueen). That was a double feature, with Doug McClure in
The Land That Time Forgot.
Anyway, J. Cagney has been my favorite actor since I was a teenager from the 70's. Loved his gangster roles, but loved the way he danced in Y.D.D. & the way he could be perfect in The Man Of A Thousand Faces. 😍
When the P.O. featured him on stamps several years back, I purchased 2 sheets of them.😊
(Did the same with J. Lennon,
J. Cash, J. Joplin, the Muppets
& the Sesame Street gang.)🤣
@@ohmightywez Maybe when more people read your comment they will look it up then, I did and here on the Tube I found the movie trailer and it's also for sale/rent here too!
jose martinez One of Cagney’s best movies for me is Angels With Dirty Faces. I remember struggling with the sacrifice that his character made to ruin his own reputation and save them from a life of crime.
When you’re a kid you always think that redemption should be big and public and make the person being redeemed feel good. Cagney’s character had to privately make a decision to ruin his own reputation and to die being hated by everyone. Hated and alone to save people. Profound.
Robert Emmett O'Connor, who plays the cop, played Tom Powers' criminal mentor, Paddy Ryan, in Cagney's breakout performance in The Public Enemy.
just the best character actors back then, and looked great too ! Faces !!
And don’t forget, he was an excellent song and dance man as well
Any Picture starring the Late, Great, James Cagney, (Even if it is only one scene)is always worth its weight in gold, any old time.
I loved Yankee Doodle Dandy the most.
How can you not love Cagney..!!..Class act..who made a pretty good actor as well..
Personally, I don't think Mr Cagney's films have aged well.The work of say Bogart and Cary Grant does but not in Cagney's case.
Cagney knew Yiddish, which was the language the Warner Brothers spoke amongst themselves when they wanted to keep something away from others around them....I'm sure Jimmy learned a lot!
No wonder Jack Warner labeled Cagney as the "The Professional Againster"
Cagney probably heard some Yiddish conversations between Warner and his cohorts in Hollywood
OH yeah I hear that story he was very flunet with Yiddish
Actually, he knew Yiddish since childhood (he grew up on the Lower East Side of Manhattan)
spind Yup! It had nothing to do with Warner Bros. He knew it long before!
@Harold Potsdamer Yiddish has been described as looking "exotic" on the printed page because of the Hebrew alphabet, but sounding at least semi-familiar and not exotic at all if you understand spoken German.
Olsen Wells once comment that Cagney was the best actor he had seen, said Cagney was a magnificent “ listener” in his scenes, a lost art of acting.
Here is the full translation. The Bowler Hat actor is Joe Barton:
Bowler Hat: Ellis Island…Do you understand? I mean Ellis Island, Elis Island, you should have a nervous breakdown Ellis Island!
Cop: Would you please tell me what you want?
Bowler Hat: Oh God, what is the matter with you? I’m telling you: look, you’re a policeman a nice man, a nice, fat guy…I’m telling you plain: My wife, my wife Sheyndl… I have a brother he pulls teeth , a tooth doctor, a dentist in America they call them a dentist. A dentist! What is the MATTER with you? Don’t you understand? A goyish head you don’t understand one word: I’m telling you plain in plain Yiddish. I want to go pick up my wife at Ellis Island.
Cop: Hey what are you trying to do? Kid me? All that I can understand is Ellis Island, Ellis Island Ellis Island. What about Ellis Island
Cagney: Where do you want to go?
Bowler Hat: I want to go to Ellis Island. My wife is coming with three children today from Russia. My name is Rabinovitch and I want to go to Ellis Island to get them
Cagney: I understand: you want to go to Ellis Island because your wife is here?
Bowler Hat: What else? You a Jewish kid?
Cagney: What else? A Gentile? Hop in.
Perfect translation.
linen: However, I heard him say in Irish accented English "what about Ellis Island.?"
Thank you! I was looking for a translation.
@Kelli Andrews It is because a number of phrases are commonly used.
Thank you linen grey. I was hoping someone translated.☺
The earliest Betty Boop cartoons shows her living in an Orthodox Jewish family and her escaping saying she does not want to live that way. A Rebel!
Wow! I had heard about this scene years ago, but never knew what film it came from or expected to see it. UA-cam is an amazing thing.
i love how cagney hams up the eastern european / yiddish accent when he says "dalancey street, thank you" to the cop .. lol
TRANSLATION OF THE SCENE:
MAN: …you understand? Ellis Island! Ellis Island! Don’t you understand? You should get the plague! Ellis Island!
COP: Will you please tell me what you want?
MAN: Oh, help! What is the MATTER with you? Look: you’re a policeman, a nice man (more like a side of beef!) I’m telling you plain: my wife, Sheyndel…I have a brother he pulls teeth he’s a tooth doctor, in America you say a “dentist” A DENTIST what is the MATTER with you don’t you understand? I’m telling you in plain Yiddish: “I want to go to Ellis Island, Ellis Island!”
COP: Are you trying to kid me? The only thing I can understand is “Ellis Island, Ellis Island, Ellis Island.” What about Ellis Island?
CAGNEY: Where do you want to go?
MAN: I want to go to Ellis Island. My wife is coming with three children from Russia….My name is Yosl Rabinovitch…I just want to go to Ellis Island.
CAGNEY: Allright, allright. I understand: you want to go to Ellis Island because your wife is here?
MAN: What else? Hey: are you a Jewish boy?
CAGNEY: What do you think? A Gentile (sheygetz) Hop in.
COP: Nolan, what part of Ireland did your folks come from?
CAGNEY: Delancey Street, thank you.
Wrong, i d i o t
He learned Yiddish from the NYC neighborhood where he grew up.
James Cagney .. one of the best! Something about that cheeky grin that I love...
I'm a huge Cagney fan. All those out there should find a copy of "Cagney by Cagney". It is a marvelous autobiography.It is heartwarming.
Yup. Have it, first edition hardback.
I have it too. First edition and all.
I heartily agree. Read it many years ago. A great read not just for Cagney fans, but for fans of all those great Warner Bros. stars who worked alongside him.
I read Cagney's autobiography many years ago and _loved_ it. I rate it a close second to the great autobiography penned by James Garner called _The Garner Files._
I've read someplace that Cagney spoke Yiddish at home. O'Connor played cops in lots of movies back them and yes, Cagney speaks it again in "The Fighting 69th." a wonderful picture like all his others.
Every time I see Jimmy I have to break out into a spirited rendition of Cohan’s H. A. double R I G A N spells Harrigan. And this is no exception
:45 Cagney: "Where are you going?" derby guy: "I need an auto ride to Ellis Island to meet with my (brother?) and children. (rest is unknown)" Cagney: "Right Right; Let me talk...you need to Ellis Island a ride, no lie?" derby guy: "you're using Yiddish??" Cagney: "What you take me for...a gentile? Let's go!"
diddymuck 👍👍❤
yer sweet!
His brother's a dentist. "My wife is coming with three children, from Russia." "Quiet down (i.e. "Chill, bro."), I understand." Also, "You're a Jewish youngster?"
"Goyasha kupp!" Love it. The head (mind) of a gentile.
If anyone wants to understand America, this clip is fantastic. An Irish guy grows up in a Jewish neighborhood in NYC and learns Yiddish because all of his friends speak it. This makes me proud to be an American!
Cagney filled the screen without even saying anything.
always seemed to be bursting with life.
Another era in so many ways. To make it in motion pictures, you had to be able to sing, to dance, hit your marks, and do it all on the first take. And, chances are, you grew up in New York and not the posh portions. No one embodies that era better than James Cagney.
And it didn't hurt in Hollywood to speak Yiddish, either.
@@steveweinstein3222 Quite true as, especially in the early days, motion pictures were regarded as...well...you know the history, Steve. Comedy too. If you didn't speak Yiddish you didn't play the Catskills where American comedy as we know it began. Or so my father always insisted 😉
Epic...and I understood every beautiful word of it.
Great scene, Cagney actually spoke Yiddish and there is a great story about him and Sam Goldwyn, or maybe Jack Warner.
+Yellowkid FortyNine Warner.
Well could you relate the story please?
Cagney was a "tough guy" off-screen, too! No way he would ever let the studio brass push him around! And since he understood Yiddish perfectly well, the Warner boys couldn't pull any of that sneaky "speaking in their mother tongue" guff around Cagney, either, in their efforts to trick him into forcing himself to comply with over-tyranical studio policy.
My Grandmother grew up in the Bronx and learned Yiddish from
the Jewish kids in the neighhood
Cagney can do it all... He's Irish 😉
I believe that he had some Norwegian in him too.
Cagney was the greatest, performer and human being. Dancer, singer, comic, actor, guitarist, gentleman farmer, humanitarian
and dance !!
and Shakespearian because wasn't one of his first films "midsummer night's dream"?
He was of Irish and Danish descent.
Never be another Cagney.....we're not that lucky.
Never fails classic Mr. Cagney, a person has to respect and love this. I do adore Mr. Cagney and this clip very much like him, pure poetry in motion and great actor,( if I am allowed to say Mr. George Raft) both very talented and good looking men of character. Yes indeed. Thanks for the upload.
Magnificent. His accent and intonation are impeccable.
LOVE!!!! You take me for a shaygetz?
Born off Ave D and 8th Street in Manhattan Lower East Side. Yea, I know where he learned fluent Yiddish!
I grew up as a huge Cagney fan. I love this clip.
How come everybody missed the punchline???? The guy says:
"You know how to get to Ellis Island?" Cagney responds: "Whadday
think I am, a shagetz?" (a non-Jewish man, vs. a non-Jewish girl, a
shicksa, which everyone knows)
It's a brilliant double-twist joke, probably improvised, because Cagney couldn't, in fact, be more of a shagetz.
Atiboyful, Glinkling Smearnops, Morris Schwartz I'm second generation, grew up in a Yiddish-speaking home,
and had many older Yiddish-speaking immigrant relatives who came over from the Old Country (Ukraine and Poland) before WWI. I lived on St.Marks place (E.8th St.) from 1981 -1988. I'm a 60s guy, so hung out in the east Village and Alphabet City with my broke-ass, tub-in-the-kitchen hippie buddies from 1965 onward.
As a native New Yorker from Brooklyn, I just wanna say that
on the day I was born, my mother's water broke on the sidewalk in front of Nathan's Famous Hot Dogs, in Coney Island...right after she finished downing a Nathan's dog, Nathan's french fries (best in the world), and an ear of hot corn. Raised as a Brooklyn Dodgers fan…
He was born on the LES, but grew up on the Upper East Side, in the Yorkville neighborhood, which also had a prominent Jewish community.
@@dankagan1912 Wow, I am very impressed. I recently had a Nathan's hot dog with my son on Coney Island who lives in Brooklyn, NY
James Cagney one of my favorite actors.
IN JUST A FEW MINUTES THE GREAT JIMMY WIPES OUT MOST OF TODAYS SO CALLED TALENT.
Cagney also speaks Yiddish to a fellow recruit in "The Fighting 69th"
Was there anything Cagney couldn't do?
When I was a kid I loved to watch cagney movies he could dance like no other was fascinated by him Yvonne uk
This made me smile. I miss my grandma so much.
just brings a smile to your face.
He wants to pick up his brother, who is a dentist and has three children, from Ellis Island? I only understood those part because they sound similar to German.
Yiddish is a mix of Hebrew and German.
ave: A bit of an oversimplification, but it has a lot of German words in it, with some changes in the connotations, and retains some Hebrew and Slavic terms, and is written in the Hebrew Alphabet. German speakers can understand it reasonably well, but it's like a different dialect. But they can't read it.
@@milascave2 how close is Yiddish to Penndilvania Dutch?
@@brettknoss486 *Pennsylvania
@@milascave2 It is even simpler. Yiddish is the East Prussian dialect of German and as you said they just use Hebrew script to write rather than Latin script.
My father's girlfriend was an East Prussian catholic* and she spoke exactly the same. Not easy for me to understand as I speak Hochdeutsch but neither is Bavarian or Plattdeutsch. In fact both in full flow are harder to understand for me than Yiddish.
*I'm fairly certain she was catholic, like most Germans she never really went to church.
Before WW1 a british journalist asked a German-Jewish grammar school student what the difference is between him and his christian schoolmates. The answer was 'I don't go to synagogue on Saturday, they don't go to church on Sunday!'
Discovering vintage movies is one of the few ‘up sides’ of this CoVID lockdown! TCM...AMC
I had NO idea that Jimmy Cagney spoke Yiddish that was wild to see
This got me thinking about my dads favorite cagney movie. It is the one where he says towards the end of the movie, Top of the world ma. He played Cody Jarrett and I think the movie was called, White Heat.
Cagney performed in what was called the Second Avenue Theater, i.e., Yiddish language theater.
Hilarious sequence with an extraordinary CAGNEY !
That's one of the most adorable things I've ever seen....love it!
Cagney was more than great.
Reminds me of Brad Pitt speaking Cockney in the movie Snatch...nailed it
That was wonderful!!!
We all came from somewhere, this is a beautiful image of our shared ethnic history.
"Knowland" "What part of Ireland did your folks come from?'
"DeLancey Street, thank you"
Cagney's name in the scene is "Nolan," a very common Irish surname.
@Ed Miller Yeah. He wouldn't know his bubbe from his zeyde on Delancey Street.
Love that seen! Loved all 3 bios on Cagney that I’ve read!
What a time for movie lovers!
I would rather watch these films from the 30's and 40's than the crap they push out of studios today.... the latest craze is comic book heros .... no thanks
some entertainment only films are fine, but we need GREAT stories, movies, etc. It's so lopsided.
Absolutely!!!!!!
I'm with you on that!
It's all bread and circuses now.
You said a mouthful touts
My great grandfather was an English emigrant to New York. But he spoke fluent Yiddish; needed it for his business.
The cop in this scene has a very historic name---Robert Emmet -obviously coming from a very Irish family that commemorated the last Irish patriot to be drawn and quartered by the British in 1804
+Zooboo Blotskya quarter of all the names in my catholic school used to be of irish rebels and exiles.
Those are my brother's first two names.
Offramp Tavanipupu Me Too!
@@Joebunkyss1 In my elementary school, and Jr. high, it was closer to 1/2, and almost all of them related to me! Yet I had several Jewish friends and wound up knowing a small amount of yiddish.
@F-350 Guy interesting...I have a cousin named Michael Collins who married a Hurley in Ireland abt 1870s...
Cagney created that shrug of his shoulders as his story goes watching a “pimp” one day in New York City!
Cagney. He even spoke Yiddish with a brogue. I heard that Cagney always felt that Yiddish swear words were superior to their English counterparts.
+Jack Grattan
I know what you mean. I remember the 80's - 90's radio shock jock Nino "Greaseman" Minnelli (Doug Tracht). He used a whole hilarious glossary of made up obscene and scatalogical terminology that he could get away with on-air that drew heavily from the Yiddish.
+Jack Grattan So, of course, they are. I once read a comment in a comic strip that French is the language of love, Latin is the language of scholarship, and Yiddish is the language of exasperation. This from a lapsed Presbyterian...
+5610winston i like.
Yeah. A brogue from County Delancey. And trust me, I know from authentic "mama loshen." His Yiddish was perfection and remains a source of delighted wonder to my frum buddies, all of whom learned it from the cradle.
@@HotVoodooWitch And none of whom speak Litvak Yiddish :-)
In the 1930s big cities in America still contained large numbers of immigrants from eastern, central and southern Europe whose grasp of English was minimal and it is reckoned that daily and weekly newspapers in languages other than English catered to at least five million such people. So a scene like this was quite plausible although the cop could have guessed the man wanted to get to Ellis Island, which is basically what this is about. After WW2 most of these newspapers went out of business as their readers gradually picked up English. Postwar there was however a wave of Spanish-speakers from Puerto Rico or Mexico.
His intonation is perfect.
We forget that what helped Cagney understand and speak Yiddish fluently was not his living on the LED but he learned to speak fluent German in school, which helped him understand the Litvish Yiddish spoken around him.
-James could do anything!
cagney spoke yiddish in real life having grown up near a jewish district and hung out with yiddish-speaking kids. he was able to understand once when a couple of hollywood executives spoke yiddish to each other to discuss how to screw him out of something in his contract and he remonstrated with them, to their shock and horror.
The Jewish man asked Cagney "Oh so you speak Yiddish?" Cagney said jokingly, "What? did you imagine me for a Gentile man.?" Ironically. I knew a number of Afro-American people who knew Yiddish well.
My Italian aunt from Brooklyn spoke fluent Yiddish! There was never a more colorful language!
This is for real James cagney spoke fluent Yiddish he grew up in New Yorks lower east side. He also used it when the top movie executives tried to keep things between themselves.
He grew up in Yorkville, but was born on the LES.
He spoke a bit of colloquial Yiddish. He was absolutely not "fluent."
@@liamsandal6360 however well he spoke Yiddish as an adult as a child on the lower east side it was the language he spoke with his friends.
My dear mother was from a family of Baptist-Methodists but grew up in a poor Jewish neighborhood in Toronto. How Jewish? During Jewish holidays her public school class would shrink from 30 kids to 3 gentiles! She was much beloved on the street and swears that over the course of 15 or 20 years she had lit almost every stove on the street when one neighbor or the other got home too late on Sabbath. My favorite story happened near the end of WW2. Her younger sister met and fell in love with a soldier just returned home and they decided to get married in a civil ceremony right away. My mother was thrilled about this but NONE OF THE JEWISH NEIGHBORS WERE! Tradition loving Jews from all over Europe believed that daughters simply did not marry out of turn! One day after word got out, she was walking home from work and was hailed by a neighbor to please come into her house. Mrs Shapiro had 4 boys from 16 to about 25 in age. She had them all dressed in their best clothes standing in a line. "Evelyn" she said "pick one". Mrs. Shapiro was trying to make things right by may mother by offering up the pick of her litter! I have no idea how she extracted herself from this sticky wicket & she eventually married my father a few years later. She always laughed when recalling this story. She had nothing but respect and affection for her neighbors and they for her.
Peter Jeffery Delightful story. Thank you. I will enjoy sharing it.
Love Cagney. I used to imitate him when I was 4 in front of family and strangers. I had a big fan at the pizza place, Quagleys in Jersey City NJ way back when.
Where was Quagleys?
I live in Jersey City.
The film includes a famous and often misquoted line with Cagney speaking to his brother's killer through a locked closet door: "Come out and take it, you dirty yellow-bellied rat, or I'll give it to you through the door!" This line has often been misquoted as "You dirty rat, you killed my brother".
James Cagney - a great talent
He was greatly under appreciated!!!
🎶🕺🎬
I don't think he was underappreciated. Comedy, musicals, drama, gangsters - there was nothing he couldn't do, and do it perfectly. He was electric! I just love him so much!
Cagney was superb in every way. Loved everything he did!!!
*O Y V E Y !* love cagney