Liberty Heights

The film takes place in 1954, but the melody of "Bayom Hahu," which the Cantor sings during the Rosh Hashanah services, was written by Michael Isaacson in the mid-1980s.

During the part of the film which was set in October/November, 1954, the trees had way too many green leaves on them for Baltimore at that time of the year.

Movie was set in 1954 yet there is a 1957 Buick parked outside the synagogue.

When the boys wander through Mt.

Vernon Place, a large metal green sign (normally bearing tourist information) is clearly visible.

These signs were not erected until the early 1990s.

The toilet seat in the hotel roomdown, then up, then down again just when she runs to it to vomit.

James Brown in 1954/55 was not a headliner, and he didn't record and release "Please Please Please" with a great deal of planning - it was cut with a single mike in a very haphazard way.

When the street car pulls up to the school it is on the street but when Ben gets on it we see that the street car is in the woods.

The car driven through the pumpkins and crashing into the barn during the Halloween party sequence appears to be a 1960s Austin Healey.

This car did not exist during the 50s period of the movie.

When Nate goes to pick Ben up from Little Melvin the Key Bridge can be seen.

The Key Bridge was not completed until 1977.

On Halloween 1954 Adrien Brody's character states that he is dressing as a beatnik.

The word "beatnik" was coined by Herb Caen in an article in the San Francisco Chronicle on April 2, 1958.

In Nate Kurtzman's office, Little Melvin refers to someone as the "Pillsbury Jew-boy," a slur obviously derived from the Pillsbury Doughboy.

But Pillsbury's famous advertising icon didn't appear until 1965.

I saw all 4 of the so-called "Baltimore Quadrilogy" in sequence, and, while the first three were fantastic, Diner still rose to the top for me. It was the most real, most heartfelt, and most memorable.

It is rare these days to find a film that contains original characters and stories. "Liberty Heights," while not perfect, fills the void for at least 2 hours.

It's 1954. Ben Kurtzman (Ben Foster) comes from the northwest section of Baltimore in a Jewish neighborhood.

Van and Ben Kurtzman (Adrien Brody and Ben Foster) are two boys growing up in the '50s in "Liberty Heights," a 1999 Barry Levinson film. The film also stars Bebe Neuwirth and Joe Mantegna as their parents, and Orlando Jones as Little Melvin.

A very good Barry Levinson flick; but miles apart from what I think as one of his masterpieces, DINER(1982). Change is slowly arriving in 1954 Baltimore.

I enjoyed the movie but it was just chock full of offensive stereotypes. Jews are smart and love Cadillacs.

At the end of "Liberty Heights", Barry Levinson reminisces through his character, Ben, that if he knew then what he would lose from memory, he would have tried harder to remember. What Levinson does remember vividly is growing up in Baltimore in the mid-1950s with discrimination toward the Jews and that is squarely where he frames "Liberty Heights", a film that is both entertaining and yet unsettling to see.

This is a fine little movie, the kind we expect from Barry Levinson. Continuing in the tradition of Diner and Avalon, he has brought us a detailed, warm slice of American life, and with that provided us something to think about today.

Joe (SPY-18)'s comments come the closest to my own feelings about this movie in its emotional receptivity to BL's message. Those who saw no connection between the various subplots seemed to have missed Levinson's brilliantly ironic juxtapositions and parallels such as white burlesque dying out in front of no patrons while Black rock stars pack them in, etc.