Word: schlemieled
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...words first glazes the eye until a thread of rewarding sense emerges from the gabble. In this respect, he is unlike the typical Chaplin figure, whose weapon was silence, but like Chaplin's little fellow, he is a reincarnation of the classic non-hero of Jewish folklore-Peter Schlemiel, the man without a shadow, who is the fated enemy of authority, whether commissar or cop. priest or rabbi, and whose talent it is to make a wheezy accordion of all top hats...
...beauty of Judy Holliday's talent lies not least in her meticulous control of it. She knows her type to a tee-hee, and she is never for an instant out of character. Actually, she plays two characters at once: 1) Dumb Dora, the sort of sweet schlemiel who continually falls on her face but always comes up covered with roses, and 2) Dora's diabolical double, a cute cookie who secretly prearranges the roses and from time to time winks wickedly at the audience. She plays both parts brilliantly in Bells, especially in the brief blackout that...
Again he takes a familiar, almost mythical theme, turns it upside down and irradiates it with originality. His hero is Morris Bober, an aging Brooklyn grocer who is clinging to solvency by his fingertips. But Morris is also that legendary Jewish figure of misfortune, the schlemiel, whose fate has been told and retold from the Old Testament to Sholom Aleichem. Bobers good intentions gain him nothing but hard knocks. The only dangers he escapes are imaginary ones. Yet, through all his woes, there shines unblinkingly the steady light of a good heart...
Unfortunately the film fails, like most of its predecessors, to exploit Jerry's unusual gift for "gallows laughter," the rich, traditional Jewish humor of the schlemiel* which he is sacrificing for the easy money in pun and jargon and in the barefaced leer...
...little guy with plenty of talent, he figured, but the world never gave him a decent break. That was the way he saw it. Just after he was married, his job folded up on him. He went to his greasy Uncle Murray Hirschl, who was a schlemiel with a dirty reputation in the jewelry business. Big-hearted Uncle Murray took him into "partnership." The pay: $10 a week. With all Eli's talent...