Elmer RiceBesprekingen

The stifling oppression of poverty and the tragedy born from it is the subject of this mature film from King Vidor. Based on Elmer Rice's Pulitzer Prize-winning play this Samuel Goldwyn-produced film starring a young Sylvia Sidney is full of insight and maturity.

Though the entire film takes place on the steps of a tenement in New York where getting out is only a dream, only the first 15 minutes or so give evidence of its stage origins. Director Vidor, one of the greats who was always innovative, uses photographer George Barnes' camera and a fine early score — very early — from Alfred Newman to give the viewer a real feel for lives being led in sometimes quiet, and sometimes not so quiet, desperation. Soon you are lost in their world and begin to understand that much of what happens is simply born of poverty and having nowhere else to turn.

Much of the film consists of dialog between neighbors living in cramped and hot quarters. There are Jews and Germans and Irish, Rice's words and Vidor's direction letting their lives unfold through the street scene in front of their building during a scorching summer. A fire hydrant may offer some relief to the small children in the street but it will take more than water to cool down others.

At the center of everything is Mrs. Murrant (Estelle Taylor) and her daughter Rose (Sylvia Sidney). Taylor gives an excellent performance as a woman reaching out for any happiness she can find in the slums. Her husband, and Rose's father, provides food and shelter but is so caught up in his own unhappiness that he has no love or tenderness left to give.

Only trying to get more from life than just looking after someone else will lead the lonely mother of Rose into the other arms. Her actions are not lost on the other women in the building, especially the snide Mrs. Jones. Neither is it lost on her son Willie's friends. When Rose's father begins to suspect, tragedy cannot be far behind.

Sylvia underplays her Rose with sincerity and maturity. She sees both sides and understands that it is their environment which is at the heart of all their problems. She herself is loved by a young Jewish boy whose mother likes Rose but knows his focus on getting out falters whenever she is near. Rose will grow up in an instant, when her life and that of her brother Willie's will change forever.

There are some quietly powerful scenes in this talky but rewarding drama from the very early days of sound film. Rose attempting to cross the street while a young newsboy tries to get her to purchase his last paper, not knowing the sensational headline touches her personally, is quite moving. It is still a powerful scene as an ambulance pulls away from Rose, taking with it her youth in these slums.

There is a rich and mature ending with Vidor's camera following Rose toward the New York skyline of the time, offering hope, and perhaps a future born from tragedy. What begins as a somewhat dated early talkie eventually becomes a moving and touching film of real substance for those with patience.

King Vidor is all-too-often neglected when the subject of great directors comes up, but his body of work, spanning silent and sound pictures, proves he was a director who could handle even the most sensitive material and create something memorable. Beware of shortened and/or censored prints of this one.

It's interesting that so many bks that I add to my bkshelves here can't be found in the already existing database. This particular play is important as a commentary on the political machinations invoking "patriotism" for the destruction of civil liberties. Given that it's inspired by the nazi rise to power thru civil-liberties-curtailing after the burning of the Reichstag (German Parliament) bldg in Germany in the early 1930s & that it was written when that subject was topical, it's educational to compare it to the parallel curtailing of civil liberties in the USA after the mayhem of September 11, 2001.

Anyway, 2 days after writing that intro, I just finished this bk. Because it's in a fictional context, it becomes more generally applicable to any time & not dependent on topicality. Do you ever wonder when the US government & the people of the US became aware of the concentration camps? This play was performed in New York City, at the Belasco Theater on September 12, 1934. One of the main protaganists, when denouncing the dictator, proclaims: "I charge him with the murder of the thousands of innocent men and women who have perished on the scaffold, in the torture chamber, and in the concentration camps." It seems to me that I was raised w/ the vague notion that the US didn't really know about the concentration camps (or the extent of them) until they were liberated in 1945. Makes a feller wonder, eh?

Avec habileté et perspicacité, King Vidor filme au début des années 30 la vie d'une rue d'un quartier populaire de New York. Le choix de cette unité de lieu (qui se concentre en réalité sur la vie d'un immeuble donné) confère beaucoup d'intérêt à la peinture qu'il dresse des personnages qui y gravitent : une femme adultère, mal mariée à un type brutal, sa fille qui souhaite construire sa vie et qui refuse le confort trop facile que lui procurerait un jeune étudiant amoureux d'elle, malgré la tournure tragique des événements.
Vive le cinéma pre-code qui permettait encore aux femmes d'exister par elles-mêmes et pour elles-mêmes !

In a hot summer afternoon in New York, Emma Jones gossips with other neighbors of her residential building about the affair of Mrs. Anna Maurrant and the milkman Steve Sankey. When the rude Mr. Frank Maurrant arrives, they change the subject. Meanwhile, their teenage daughter Rose Maurrant is sexually harassed by her boss Mr. Bert Easter; however, she likes her Jewish neighbor Sam that has a crush on her. On the next morning, Frank tells that is traveling to Stanford on business. Mrs. Maurrant meets the gentle Sankey in her apartment, but out of the blue Frank comes back home in an announced tragedy. (fonte: imdb)

A very good play. I like how creative it was and how all of the people's last bames were numbers. Could this symbolize that he is merely a number with respect for the company? Who wouldn't be mad enough to kill their boss after they had been replaced with a number machine after working at the company for over twenty years. The boss didn't even know his name!??! I did like, however, the ending where he and his late co-worker ended up finding love in the Elesian Fields of anciet Greece

I was in the cast of this play in an Amateur production. The monotony of the working world and the theme of being only pawns in a bigger game is fascinating. I enjoyed doing this play and would love to do it again.

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