Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg

It seems that the day they invented broadcast television, Gertrude Berg was there -- having honed her craft for 17 years on CBS radio in "The Rise of the Goldbergs" from 1929 to 1946. She conceived the sitcom as "The Goldbergs" in 1949 -- it hadn't been a radcom on radio (a little radcom on the side, bubula?). She received the first Emmy for Best Actress in 1950. But, while we memorialize Uncle Miltie, Lucy and Desi, Steve Allen, Ed Sullivan, and others, Aviva Kempner makes the point in her documentary Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg that an immensely important figure has been wiped from the slate, the woman who as creator, producer, writer, and actress invented the form that has dominated the history of television, the situation comedy, to this day (at least til Simon Cowell, so nu?). In a film that has nearly the flow of a fictional narrative, Ms Kempner almost seamlessly unfolds Ms. Berg's life from a childhood in the then Jewish enclave of Harlem and the Catskill resorts to marriage and life in the South to a British Jew who invented instant coffee to her legendary radio, television, and stage career--did we mention her Tony for Best Actress in 1959?

Ms. Kempner's toast to "Molly Goldberg" continues a career dedicated to resurrecting awareness and affection for overlooked or forgotten Jewish figures. In 1986, "Partisans of Vilna" documented Jewish resistance to the Nazis. In 2000 "The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg" recounted the life of the famous baseball hero of the 1930's and 1940's, Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg uses the facts of Ms. Berg's life, clips from the radio and television shows as well as from the Eds, Murrow and Sullivan, "I Love Lucy," Steve Allen, and others,and comments from such disparate personalities as Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Ed Asner, and Norman Lear,  to testify to Berg's pervasive influence. There is even ample and interesting coverage of her passionate but fruitless attempts to save the career of one of her castmates, Philip Loeb, from the McCarthyite attacks of the 50's.

If Gertrude Berg was the Oprah or Martha of her day (did we mention her cookbooks and clothing line?) it could be pointed out that neither of these ladies introduced Steve McQueen or Anne Bancroft to the public.

Gertrude Berg was a macher. And so is her movie.

                                                Howard Buck