Essential Cinema: Edgar G. Ulmer: Prince of Poverty Row

AMERICAN MATCHMAKER

Directed by Edgar G. Ulmer

USA, 1940, 1h 27min, DCP, In English and Yiddish with English Subtitles

Essential Cinema: Edgar G. Ulmer: Prince of Poverty Row

There are no current or future screenings planned for this film.

As part of a career rich in variety but often poor in finance, Edgar G. Ulmer made films of every stripe. This Yiddish-language comedy is about a man who, though unlucky in love, finds that he has a talent as a matchmaker for other couples.

This screening will be introduced by Noah Isenberg, the George Christian Centennial Professor and Chair of University of Texas at Austin’s Radio-Television-Film department, and author of the critical biography “Edgar G. Ulmer: A Filmmaker at the Margins.” The author will be onsite signing copies of his book at this screening.

About this series:

In the mid-1980s, when a traveling retrospective of the famously obscure émigré filmmaker Edgar G. Ulmer (“King of the Bs”) was making its way across the United States, the Houston Chronicle ran a review with the apt title “Edgar G. Who?” If he was known at all, it was mainly due to his breathtaking low-budget noir DETOUR (1945). But Ulmer’s near thirty-five-year career as a director encompassed everything from a doomed entry to the Universal horror cycle, four Yiddish features, a Mexican western (Truffaut called it “a small gift from Hollywood”), a few sci-fi quickies, and other minor wonders from Poverty Row. Programmed in collaboration with Noah Isenberg, the George Christian Centennial Professor and Chair of University of Texas at Austin’s Radio-Television-Film department, and author of the critical biography “Edgar G. Ulmer: A Filmmaker at the Margins.”

American Matchmaker Still 1

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