Discovering that as heir to his family estate that he owns a series of tenement buildings which have become fire traps, handsome young millionaire Leif Erickson decides something must be done about it. He has witnessed the most recent one prior to discovering that he is the murderous landlord who was responsible, he becomes attracted to one of the residents (the lovely Sylvia Sidney) whose young brother (a very young Sidney Lumet) is gravely injured in the fire where a young mother threw her baby out of a window before jumping to her own death. Lumet, already on the verge of a mental breakdown due to his poor existence, begins to see the tenement building as a horrific monster which talks to him in his delusional state. With windows representing a monster's eyes and nose and a door to represent its mouth, this building does come alive, laughing maniacally at the tortured Lumet who truly begins to slip deeper into insanity as his delusions take over his brain.
This is a unique variation on the type of morality play which Broadway had been producing for over a decade, two films of those plays having already starred Ms. Sidney, typecasting her as a hard-working poor girl trying to make the best of a horrible situation. She was a victim of neighborhood gossip in "Street Scene" and dealing with a criminal element in "Dead End" (and juvenile delinquents taking over the neighborhood), and here, she's taking on the wealthy and powerful as she fights for improvements to the buildings which ultimately ends up in tragedy. The wealthy family and business associates of Erickson think he's overreacting to the whole situation and in their mind, his passion about this is more effective for political ambitions rather than just doing really good.
No matter how many long-suffering heroines of this nature which Ms. Sidney played, she always added new elements to each of her characterizations so they seemed different. Her sad eyes added to her own intelligence and compassion which made her excellent in these kinds of melodramas. Perhaps best known today as the old lady in a few Tim Burton films ("Beetlejuice" and "Mars Attacks!"), she was one of the best leading ladies of films in the 1930's and equally as intense a dramatic actress as Bette Davis and Barbara Stanwyck. Sidney Lumet had only one film role as a child (before going onto years later being one of the greatest post-classic era Hollywood directors of such classics as "Network" and "Dog Day Afternoon". His performance is unforgettable, and rather than chew the scenery like Mickey Rooney might have done, he makes the character truly human and pathetic rather than over the top. Audiences for the most part stayed away from this, perhaps many of them either not wanting to face the reality of how they lived, and others feeling guilty over letting society go to blazes literally over not taking care of the underdog. For this reason, this film is probably better because it takes the time that reminds us that we are our brother's keeper and that true humanity can't survive unless we look out for others rather than #1.
This is a unique variation on the type of morality play which Broadway had been producing for over a decade, two films of those plays having already starred Ms. Sidney, typecasting her as a hard-working poor girl trying to make the best of a horrible situation. She was a victim of neighborhood gossip in "Street Scene" and dealing with a criminal element in "Dead End" (and juvenile delinquents taking over the neighborhood), and here, she's taking on the wealthy and powerful as she fights for improvements to the buildings which ultimately ends up in tragedy. The wealthy family and business associates of Erickson think he's overreacting to the whole situation and in their mind, his passion about this is more effective for political ambitions rather than just doing really good.
No matter how many long-suffering heroines of this nature which Ms. Sidney played, she always added new elements to each of her characterizations so they seemed different. Her sad eyes added to her own intelligence and compassion which made her excellent in these kinds of melodramas. Perhaps best known today as the old lady in a few Tim Burton films ("Beetlejuice" and "Mars Attacks!"), she was one of the best leading ladies of films in the 1930's and equally as intense a dramatic actress as Bette Davis and Barbara Stanwyck. Sidney Lumet had only one film role as a child (before going onto years later being one of the greatest post-classic era Hollywood directors of such classics as "Network" and "Dog Day Afternoon". His performance is unforgettable, and rather than chew the scenery like Mickey Rooney might have done, he makes the character truly human and pathetic rather than over the top. Audiences for the most part stayed away from this, perhaps many of them either not wanting to face the reality of how they lived, and others feeling guilty over letting society go to blazes literally over not taking care of the underdog. For this reason, this film is probably better because it takes the time that reminds us that we are our brother's keeper and that true humanity can't survive unless we look out for others rather than #1.