From "City Streets" on Sylvia Sidney was bound by the ethos of her time - the poor slum girl fighting against the ills of society. She was such a highly emotional actress that, whatever the role, the audience was always behind her. By the end of the thirties she had had enough of movie making and Hollywood but she became intrigued by the social importance of the Federal Theatre Prokect's "..One Third of a Nation.." which played in New York in 1938. She starred in the movie version which was filmed in New York.
When Mary Roger's (Sidney) brother Joey (future director Sidney Lumet) is seriously hurt in a slum fire, a wealthy young benefactor, Peter Courtland (Leif Erikson) helps out by paying all the medical expenses. She vows to fight "slum landlords" as the tenement was a death trap and riddled with faulty fire escapes, broken stairs and over crowding and Peter agrees, but is later horrified when he realises that he is the actual owner of the building. At the hearing to establish just what caused the fire, Mary gives an impassioned speech when she sees the judge giving preferential treatment to the owner. She then charges him with living off the immoral earnings of the many prostitutes who live in the buildings - and the press have a field day!!! Feisty Iris Adrian plays one and she is a scream, when told to vacate the apartment she spits "APARTMENT!!! this 2 by 2 hole - it ain't even good enough for rats"!!!
Part allegory, part social drama, part hokum - there is something in it that doesn't ring true somehow. For every earnest speech uttered by Sidney there is Leif Erikson who, to me, comes across as basically a weak person who only gets fired up when he is in Mary's company. Joey returns from the hospital deeply disturbed, he won't go back into the hated tenement and spends his time hanging out near the waterfront. In a series of scenes where he voices his innermost feelings about the rottenness of life, the building responds with horrific stories of the problems people have always faced in the slums - cholera, infant mortality etc - the bottom line is the promise of a better way of life for slum dwellers is all talk. For me this would have been a terrific little movie as a Warners pre-coder at just over an hour and leaving out all the pompous soul searching of Peter and delivering an effective shocking expose of tenement life.
In the end the tenements are knocked down to make way for cleaner flats with play areas for the kids - but it is Joey's legacy. By burning down the building Joey paves the way for lily livered Peter to stick to his principles and forget the threats of his well heeled family. Once again Sylvia delivers a blistering portrait of a slum girl with special mention to Sidney Lumet - it is a pity that the rest of the movie doesn't measure up.
When Mary Roger's (Sidney) brother Joey (future director Sidney Lumet) is seriously hurt in a slum fire, a wealthy young benefactor, Peter Courtland (Leif Erikson) helps out by paying all the medical expenses. She vows to fight "slum landlords" as the tenement was a death trap and riddled with faulty fire escapes, broken stairs and over crowding and Peter agrees, but is later horrified when he realises that he is the actual owner of the building. At the hearing to establish just what caused the fire, Mary gives an impassioned speech when she sees the judge giving preferential treatment to the owner. She then charges him with living off the immoral earnings of the many prostitutes who live in the buildings - and the press have a field day!!! Feisty Iris Adrian plays one and she is a scream, when told to vacate the apartment she spits "APARTMENT!!! this 2 by 2 hole - it ain't even good enough for rats"!!!
Part allegory, part social drama, part hokum - there is something in it that doesn't ring true somehow. For every earnest speech uttered by Sidney there is Leif Erikson who, to me, comes across as basically a weak person who only gets fired up when he is in Mary's company. Joey returns from the hospital deeply disturbed, he won't go back into the hated tenement and spends his time hanging out near the waterfront. In a series of scenes where he voices his innermost feelings about the rottenness of life, the building responds with horrific stories of the problems people have always faced in the slums - cholera, infant mortality etc - the bottom line is the promise of a better way of life for slum dwellers is all talk. For me this would have been a terrific little movie as a Warners pre-coder at just over an hour and leaving out all the pompous soul searching of Peter and delivering an effective shocking expose of tenement life.
In the end the tenements are knocked down to make way for cleaner flats with play areas for the kids - but it is Joey's legacy. By burning down the building Joey paves the way for lily livered Peter to stick to his principles and forget the threats of his well heeled family. Once again Sylvia delivers a blistering portrait of a slum girl with special mention to Sidney Lumet - it is a pity that the rest of the movie doesn't measure up.