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Adapted by Allen Boretz from Lucille S. Plumbs and Sara B. Smith's stage play Ever the Beginning, My Girl Tisa is set in New York at the turn of the century. Tisa Kepes (Lilli Palmer) is a newly arrived immigrant girl who hopes to bring her father to America. She is fleeced by travel-agent Hugo Haas, browbeaten by sweatshop-owner Akim Tamiroff, and offered sagacious but ineffectual legal advice by Sam Wanamaker. It takes a "deus ex machina" appearance by Theodore Roosevelt (Sidney Blackmer) to solve Tisa's dilemma. When asked about My Girl Tisa, director Elliot Nugent was proudest of his ability to cut down on the budget by filming several of his street scenes from an overhead vantage point, thereby economizing on sets and extras. The film was produced independently by Milton Sperling's United States Pictures, and released by Warner Bros.