Street Scene (1931)
- General info
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- Synopsis:
On a hot summer afternoon in New York, Emma Jones (Beulah Bondi) gossips with other neighbors of her residential building about the affair of Mrs. Anna Maurrant (Estelle Taylor) and milkman Steve Sankey (Russell Hopton). When rude Mr. Frank Maurrant (David Landau) arrives, they change the subject. Meanwhile, their teenage daughter Rose Maurrant (Sylvia Sidney) is sexually harassed by her boss Mr. Bert Easter (Walter Miller) and likes her Jewish neighbor Sam (William Collier Jr.), who has a crush on her. The next morning, Frank tells Anna that he is traveling to Stanford on business. Mrs. Maurrant meets gentle Sankey in her apartment, but out of the blue Frank returns home in an announced tragedy. - Actors:
- Sylvia Sidney, William Collier Jr., Estelle Taylor, Beulah Bondi, David Landau, Matt McHugh, Russell Hopton, Greta Granstedt, Eleanor Wesselhoeft, Allen Fox, Nora Cecil, Margaret Robertson, Walter James, Max Montor, Walter Miller, T.H. Manning, Conway Washburne, John Qualen, Ann Kostant, Adele Watson
- Directors:
- King Vidor
- Producers:
- Samuel Goldwyn
- Writers:
- Elmer Rice
- Aka:
- La calle
- Genres:
- Classics, Drama, Romance
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Reviews (1) of Street Scene
Realist Melodrama - Street Scene review by Steve
King Vidor's spirited adaptation of Elmer Rice's Pulitzer Prize winning play is one of the 1930’s ultimate melodramas. The director thrillingly frees his camera from the restrictions of early sound cinema and explores the set of an impoverished New York tenement, where the ensemble cast pursue their various conflicts, usually sparked by intolerance.
An elderly tenant has ideas which could improve their lives, but is ignored, or called a Red. His notions are complicated. And it's too hot. Tempers are shredded. Money is scarce. And then a gunshot... Vidor's staging of the panic that follows is spectacular.
It can seem the precode era was just about salacious censor-baiting. But there was social realism too, usually adapted from the New York stage. Sylvia Sidney was the star in many of these. Her gift was to be ordinary without exposing much frivolous Hollywood glamour. She’s in a class of her own among a pretty decent cast.
She communicates an intense adversity while being relatively impassive. There's a Gershwinesque score from Alfred Newman and an exceptional screenplay. But this is Vidor's triumph and one of the best early talkies. It might not be as visually stunning as his landmark silent, The Crowd (1928), but given the impediment of sound, this is just as impressive.