Jewish philanthropist Julius Rosenwald had a lot in common with black people. White America didn’t like him. This deferential doc tells his story. In his mind a fellow member of a “despised minority,” the Sears CEO and civil rights champion, among other things, joined forces with Booker T. Washington to construct thousands of schoolhouses in African-American communities throughout the South. It’s difficult to get past Aviva Kempner's flagrant exchange of movie clips for historical found footage. Spotting Gene Wilder in a crowd had a way of disjoining disbelief. (The ghost of Robert Aldrich should sue for a co-director’s credit.) What should have been a 75-minute special presentation on PBS is padded to feature-length proportion by a substantial third-act video yearbook tribute to Rosenwald School’s finest. With Rosenwald, Kempner (Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg, The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg) inches one notable closer to rounding out her Mt. Rushmore of documentary tributes to forgotten Jewish trailblazers. (2015) — Scott Marks
This movie is not currently in theaters.