User Reviews

This film helped me understand and appreciate what my own family went through upon arriving at Ellis Island. Thankfully, they were among the early Italian wave of immigrants. I know from my father the prejudice that he encountered towards Italians in New York but knew nothing of the eugenics part of the story. What a wonderful country we were to welcome so many that had so little. How much have these multitudes of brave people contributed to America in the ensuing century? Certainly the process was imperfect as were the scientific practices of the time, but all in all, this film captures the heart of America and the soul of those who undertook this huge and risky adventure in a new land!

"Forgotten Ellis Island" is a documentary which explores the medical wing of America's most famous (and infamous) immigration depot. Though most Americans know the story of the island, the documentary seeks to go beyond the usual borders of history and talk about the island's hospitals, which dealt with a wide variety of diseases as well as perceived mental illnesses.

I just watched this movie in a premiere showing and was reasonably impressed. The style is nothing new: talking heads interviews, archive footage, photographs, and some modern shots underscored by an unobtrusive score. Garden variety documentary stuff, which basically sums up this feature. It's short (62 minutes) and by no means incredible film-making, but the material is interesting and the movie is competently put together. On the whole the documentary does a solid job combining the usual Ellis Island background material with more specific information about the medical facilities that the audience is presumably unaware of. Elliot Gould is a decent narrator even if he chews over every word, and the film moves along at a pace that will interest, if not engage, the average viewer.

All things considered, Forgotten Ellis Island is worth a look for those interested in the subject or history in general. 3 stars out of 4.

I enjoyed "Forgotten Ellis Island" and think it would be a great film for anyone who has very limited knowledge about the place and its place in history. For example, if I was still teaching, I would consider showing it to my old American history students. The stories are compelling, the narration (by Elliot Gould) decent and the story is told compactly in a bit under an hour. My only complaint, and I cannot blame the film for this, is that I wanted to hear MUCH more. After all, cramming everything into such a short time slot is really doing Ellis Island a disservice if you are like me--a nut about history. Along this same line, I wanted to hear about the place today--after it became a US park. However, I assume due to time constraints, it was omitted and the story seemed to gloss very quickly over certain time periods--particularly after the 1920s. Still, for a general overview, it was very well made.