Ten years after her stage success in Mamele, MollyPicon was still able to pull off the role of Khavtshi, who promises herdying mother she will look after her four older siblings and perpetuallyunemployed Papa (Max Bozyk). The "little mother" exercises hercreative impulses by selecting her sisters' suitors and acting asadvice-central for the tenement. Though unappreciated by all (but us),she's both vivacious and self-aware: in one of the film's high pointsshe sings her way through the stages of a woman's life, from girlhood toold age. Transposed from the stage play's Lower East Side to Lodz,Poland, director Green's hometown, and edited just in time for itsmakers to leave Warsaw for friendlier ground, "Mamele embracesprewar Polish-Jewish life in all its diversity, including tenements andunemployment, nightclubs and Jewish gangsters, and religious Jews atSuccoth, the harvest festival." (National Center for Jewish Film)