Figure 1.--"Snow in August" is about an 11-year old Catholic boy who befriends a Polish Rabbi in late 1940's Brooklyn. Boys are pictured both in their regular clothes and in uniforms at their Catholic school. Here we see the school uniform.

"Snow in August" is about an 11-year old Catholic boy who befriends a Polish Rabbi in late 1940's Brooklyn. He witnesses a neighborhood punk beat up a Jewish shopkeeper and his threatened with harm if he tells the police. On a dare, he visits the Rabbi and a friendship is struck. The Rabbi teaches him Yiddish and he teaches the Rabbi about baseball. The Rabbi is a Holocaust survivor who lost his wife who was in the resistance. The boy and his mother are harassed by the punk and his friends, and eventually they beat up the boy and the Rabbi (for being Jewish). The boy recalls how to summon the Golem, a large creature who is made from clay, who rises up and saves the boy from the punks, among other things that I won't mention as it will spoil the ending. The film is very well made and Peter Tambakis is wonderful in the lead. The costuming is typical for the time. What is interesting is the Catholic school uniforms the boys wear. A jacket, white shirt, shorts, long dark socks and a cap. I wonder if this was common back then. The boy also wears shorts much of the time as leisure wear, which I'm not sure was that common at that time. He also wears a baseball like cap and one of his prize possessions is a Jackie Robinson badge given to him by the Rabbi. The film is set the year that Robinson broke the color line in baseball. He also wears a baseball uniform from time to team. All in all, despite a rather unbelievable ending, this is a superb, well acted film, anchored by the excellent performance by Peter Tambakis.

Created: February 4, 2004
Last updated: February 4, 2004