13th Israeli Film Festival Offers Lively, Engaging Fare

The 13th annual Israel Film Festival continues at the Monica 4-Plex with an array of worthy films. Screening tonight at 9:45 p.m., Thursday at 5:15 p.m. and Dec. 23 at 3 p.m. is Erez Laufer’s lively and appealing “Don’t Cry for Me, Edinburgh,” a documentary on a gay acting troupe in Tel Aviv preparing an evening of sketches of gay life to be performed at the Edinburgh Festival. They’ve been assured of solid support from the local gay community only to be met with virtually empty houses in the storefront theater where they’ve been booked. They take to the streets with leaflets, one of the four actors donning drag, and manage four sold-out shows on the final nights of their two-week run. “Edinburgh” is charged with resilient high spirits and a sense of fun and adventure.

Well-known actor Arnon Zadok makes his directorial debut with “White Night” (Wednesday at 7:30 p.m., Dec. 23 at 9:45 p.m.), a bleak but inspirational tale, written by prisoners serving life terms, about a friendship between two inmates, Charlie (Shalom Shmuelov) and Shlomo (Sharon Alexander). Neither are lifers, but in his determination to help Charlie get off drugs, Shlomo enables both men to discover a sense of purpose in life. The film is ultra-realistic in style and zeroes in on the issues of rehabilitation in general and the availability of drugs in prisons in particular. Zadok also appears in a supporting role as a prisoner who forces a new cellmate to become his lover.

Eitan Green’s “As Tears Go By” (Saturday at 5:15 p.m. and on Dec. 24 at 3 p.m.) is a gentle, observant coming-of-age story that captures the universal tensions and frustrations of everyday life. Avi Graynik stars as a tall, rather awkward and uptight youth who is struggling to pass his driver’s test. His father (Arie Moskona), a party organizer who is eager to add catering services, is loving toward his son but is an overweight, hard-driving type, a compulsive eater with a heart problems. “As Tears Go By” is engaging and benefits strongly from Adi Renart’s mood-setting score.

Return of ‘Sally’:

Marilyn Miller is virtually forgotten today, having made only three long-obscure early talkies before her death from blood poisoning in 1936 at the age of 37, but she had been Florenz Ziegfeld’s shining singing and dancing star of the ‘20s. Her first film, “Sally” (1929), long thought lost, screens Friday at 7:30 p.m. as part of LACMA’s Tribute to Jerome Kern, keyed to the “Show Boat” stage revival currently at the Ahmanson. While its appeal today is surely restricted to nostalgists and historians, “Sally,” which has a two-strip Technicolor sequence, is fascinating on several counts. The early talkie musicals are of greatest interest as a record of popular Broadway entertainments and personalities during its most dazzlingly successful decade, the ‘20s. They are little more than filmed plays, although “Sally,” directed by John Francis Dillon, is more fluid than some.

An adaptation of Miller’s 1920 hit written by Guy Bolton, with songs by Kern, “Sally” is a bit of typical fluff of the period about how a klutzy waitress, through luck and pluck, becomes a top musical comedy star. Its key song is the evergreen “Look for the Silver Lining.” Miller is a pretty blonde, not terribly photogenic, with a light operatic singing voice, lovely legs and graceful whether tapping or toe-dancing in the unsophisticated routines of the era. Her genteel appeal pales alongside the down-to-earth Depression heroines Ruby Keeler, Ginger Rogers and Joan Blondell, who were to succeed her shortly at Warner Bros. The film’s lavish sets and costumes are credited to Jack Warner’s having fallen hard for his star. (213) 857-6010.

Note: A new print of Alfred Hitchcock’s “North by Northwest” (1959) opens a one-week run at the Nuart Thursday. (310) 478-6379.