esrosedotblog

SLUMMING

Today's movie was William Wyler's Dead End (1937).
It is one of the NY Times 1176 Best Films.

This had been a successful Broadway play and was adapted almost directly for film.

The main set is really wonderful. The movie opens with a long and loving exploration of the street, tenements, and encroaching high rise apartment building.

The camera uses its breadth extensively, sweeping here and there and up and down to punctuate the action and provide visual pauses. It is great to watch. In fact, the entire production is rich and full of action; lots of crowd scenes; a lot of stuff happening all the time. It is a street scene, after all.

The drama is a bit dated since the social milieu is entirely gone, but the idea of poverty breeding crime and the legacy of generations in that life is timeless. The juxtaposition of rich and poor underlines the theme. The impact of rampant development of high rises or their equivalent, is still with us. We have it right here in our own city.

Humphrey Bogart makes his second film appearance as "Baby Face" Nelson who is returning to his old stomping grounds. Joel McCrea, Sylvia Sidney and Claire Trevor are the other leads. Trevor got an Oscar nomination for Supporting Actress with her five minute appearance as Bogart's ex. It is quite the performance and I think out of her type entirely.

There are a bunch of familiar players from Ward Bond to Marjorie Main in minor roles. For an old movie goer like me is was like visiting old friends. That was the great thing about the contract player and studio system. It was a repertory company that kept the quality high and lent itself to a kind of ensemble playing that is gone today.

The street kids in this film stayed together in Warner shorts and features as the Dead End Kids and later, the Bowery Boys; Huntz Hall, Leo Gorcey, and the others. They were Saturday matinee regulars for a long time and, except for Gabriel Dell, who became a standup comic, it pretty much cooked their careers for anything else. Talk about type casting. They are below, ten years later, in 1947.

Did you notice when this came out? 1937; the year I was born!

I will give it a 4 out of Netflix5.