Liberty Heights
Anti-Semitism, race relations, coming of age, and fathers and sons: in Baltimore from fall, 1954, to fall…
- Director:Barry Levinson
- Genre:Drama / Music / Romance
- Runtime:123 minutes
Cast
Adrien Brody : Van Kurtzman
Ben Foster : Ben Kurtzman
Orlando Jones : Little Melvin
Bebe Neuwirth : Ada Kurtzman
Joe Mantegna : Nate Kurtzman
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In the fall of 1954, the Kurtzmans, a Jewish family, live in Forest Park, a suburban neighborhood in the northwest section of Baltimore. At the beginning of the film, Nate, the father, runs a burlesque theatre, and engages in a community numbers racket. His wife Ada stays home and takes care of the household. Van, the older son, attends the University of Baltimore, while Ben is finishing his final year in high school.
Ben meets Sylvia, an African-American girl, who begins attending his school after the district has been integrated. Ben immediately start to develop feelings towards Sylvia, and introduces himself. The two become close based on a mutual love for Little Richard, James Brown, jazz musicians, and black comedians. Sylvia’s father, an affluent doctor, disapproves of their relationship and forbids them to see one another.
On Halloween, Ben dresses up as Adolf Hitler. This offends his parents greatly. Van and his friends head over to a party in a predominantly bourgeois, gentile section of Baltimore. Van is attracted to a mysterious blonde woman. A fight between one of Van’s buddies and a gentile erupts and Trey, one of the party-goers, drunkenly crashes his car into the house. Van must leave the mystery woman.
Trey goes to court for the car crash. Van and his friends are there as witnesses. After the court sessions expires, Van asks several of the other party attendants about the blonde woman he met. Trey discovers that the girl Van has fallen in love with is Dubbie, his own girlfriend.
Meanwhile, Nate’s burlesque theatre has problems. Little Melvin, a local drug dealer, defies expectations and wins the numbers racket. Nate is then forced to cut Melvin a “slice of the pie”. When Nate offers Melvin the numbers business instead, Melvin claims that Nate is trying to “Jew” him out of his money and a fight breaks out between their bodyguards. Read more
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