"The Tailor" (Marcus Pincus) Is Back Online - One of Our Most Popular Blog Posts

Last June we posted a short black-and-white almost silent film called The Tailor which was making its debut at the San Francisco Film Festival. It remains the 5th most viewed of our 759 blog posts since we started Jewish Humor Central in October 2009. It's based on one of the oldest Jewish jokes around, the Marcus Pincus the Tailor joke.

Three weeks after we posted the 6 minute film, Gordon Grinberg, its writer and director, removed it from the internet because it was, and still is, making appearances at Jewish film festivals all over. We understood and respected his desire to keep the film private, and replaced the film on our blog post with the joke in a stand-up comic delivery by one of the regulars from Old Jews Telling Jokes.

But still we got requests to repost the film. Now, Grinberg has included the film on his own website for all to see. It's protected from embedding so we can't put it on Jewish Humor Central, but we can give you a direct link to his website where you can watch this gem of a film.

Just in case you haven't heard the joke, it's about two Chassidic boys who buy black suits from Marcus Pincus, the tailor, but suspect that the suits are actually navy blue.  To confirm their suspicion, they plan to brush against two nuns who are walking towards them to compare the colors of the suits and the nuns' habits.

Meanwhile, the nuns aren't sure whether the boys are yeshiva students or young priests, and plan to listen to their conversation as they pass to determine whether they are speaking Hebrew or Latin.

The suspense builds as the boys and the nuns get closer and climaxes as the boys learn the truth and the nuns come to a conclusion based on what they think they hear the boys say. 

The whole film is just a set-up for a hilarious off-color punch line. (We said we'd warn you before posting anything that might offend readers who object to language that the mainstream media find unfit to print. So if you don't want to hear the word, don't bother watching the video.)

The film plays against a background of klezmer and piano music perfectly suited to maintaining the tension as the story unfolds. It will be featured at the Hartford Jewish Film Festival from March 17 through March 27 and at the Austin Jewish Film Festival from March 24 through March 30.

Here is the link: http://www.gordongrinberg.com/TheTailor

It may take a few minutes to load, but it's worth the wait. When it finishes loading, just click on the tiny forward arrow at the bottom of the frame. Enjoy!