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The 24th Annual Rutgers Jewish Film Festival

 By Nate Feldman



The 24th annual Rutgers Jewish Film Festival was held this year both on the Rutgers University campus in and around New Brunswick, NJ, and also online.  The festival has Jewish-themed films from many countries around the world, including the United States, Germany, and Israel.  

On Sunday, November 5, I went to the 12:30 showing of The Frisco Kid, a 1979 comedy starring and Gene Wilder and Harrison Ford in the lead roles.  The story is about Avram Belinski, played by Gene Wilder, a Rabbi from Poland who has been sent to the United States in the 1850s to become the leader of a Jewish congregation in San Francisco.  

When Avram arrives in Philadelphia, he discovers that he has missed the ship that would have taken him to San Francisco.  He encounters two brothers, who claim they have likewise missed the ship, who say it is urgent they get to San Francisco to see their dying mother.  Avram offers to pay for them to get there by wagon so long as he can come with them.  However, shortly into their trip, it turns out they using him to steal his money and throw him off the wagon.  This begins a series of adventures in which he, and a serial bank robber named Tommy, played by Harrison Ford, travel across the country and have encounters with an angry posse of men who Tommy stole money from, Native Americans, a Catholic monastery, as well as many natural elements.  

While the film is a bit dated now, and by many is not considered neither Wilder's nor Ford's most notable work, it was enjoyable and entertaining to watch, and I would recommend it to others to see at least one time.  

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