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The Cohens and the Kellys (PG*) + live musical accompaniment by Dermot Dunne and Nick Roth

Silent Film and Live Music

,Barbican Cinema 1
The Cohens and the Kellys

The first of a series of eight comedies featuring the Cohens and Kellys  – two quarrelling families that can't get away from each other.

This lively comedy of feuding Irish and Jewish families in 1920s New York is filled with stock characters played with great comic flair - the hard-working Jewish storekeeper (George Sidney), his anxious wife (Vera Gordon), the pugnacious Irish cop (Charlie Murray), and his feisty but warm-hearted wife (Cork-born Kate Price). Living side by side in the poorer quarters of New York, tensions between them reach a peak when the daughter of the Jewish family falls in love with the Irish family's son.

A live score, drawing lavishly on Irish and Jewish Folk music traditions, is provided by multi-award-winning Irish accordionist Dermot Dunne, saxophonist Nick Roth (Yurodny Ensemble), improvising violinist Cora Venus Lunny and cellist Adrian Mantu (RTÉ ConTempo Quartet).

Tagged with: Cinema Silent Film & Live Music

US 1926 Dir Harry A. Pollard 108 min

This film has been beautifully restored by the Cinémathèque Royale de Belgique and the IFI Irish Film Archive

Presented in partnership with The Irish Film Institute in association with Irish Film Festival London and UK Jewish Film Festival

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Barbican Cinema 1