Camp Stories
Camp Stories is an independent comedy film, written and directed by Herbert Beigel that takes a comic look at a Jewish summer camp in the 1950s. The film was released on April 18, 1997 in the United States. Plot. In the summer of 1958, 15-year-old David Katz is constantly defying authority figures at the Orthodox Jewish summer camp he is enrolled in. He especially riles the paranoid camp counsellor Chaim (Marcoux) who believes David is having an affair with his wife. The adolescent antics continue with the boys arranging midnight rendezvous at the girls' camp. Reception . "The New York Times" praised the film, asserting that it is "more honest than most 1950s nostalgia films in its portrayal of teen-age life." The newspaper continued; "the political jockeying among staff members to succeed the camp's ultraconservative founder, Schlomo (Jerry Stiller), mirrors the cultural conflicts just beginning to surface in America (and in Judaism), symbolized by the bubbling up of rock-and-roll." The reviewer also concluded that this "tender" film is "beautifully acted".