If it starts out as a kind of "Front Window," it ends up as "Slaughter on Tenth Avenue.
The story of half a dozen families of different ethnic backgrounds living in a New York City tenement. It's a filmed play. It's never "opened up" but the production design is so good that it doesn't really have to be. It must have had a considerable budget because the set is large and there are numerous extras. Not that it cost that much to hire extras in 1931.
The focus is on Sylvia Sidney as the daughter of a gruff, unfeeling father, and a lonely mother who is engaged in an affair. Dad returns unexpectedly from a trip and catches them in flagrante delicto.
The film is filled with stereotypes but they didn't strike me as particularly obnoxious. There's the Jewish family, the Kaplans -- the father a loud Bolshevik, the son a quiet student who is in love with Sidney, and the understanding and compassionate mother.
There's the Italian family, with the fat, good-natured father, wearing a mustache out of a barber shop quartet, singing "La Donna E Mobile" and complaining that his wife refuses to get pregnant. There's an Irishman fond of drink and a reserved family of Scandinavians. At various times, African-Americans show up, as well as Asians.
Offensive words like "Kike" and "Yid" are sometimes used, but they're used by the cocky street tough whom everyone dislikes. And we should probably keep in mind that the world was considerably less sensitive to such usage at the time, pre politically correct.
Although it's an ensemble movie, it depends a lot on Sylvia Sidney, the central character, and she delivers.
It had a curious effect on me. It impressed on me how much children have changed over the years. Here -- quite realistically -- they dance circles in the street and chant songs I can barely remember from my own childhood. The only reason kids don't play marbles is that there is no unpaved surface to dig a hole in. And girls don't skip rope anymore, do they? I'd thought it was one of the eternal verities.
The story of half a dozen families of different ethnic backgrounds living in a New York City tenement. It's a filmed play. It's never "opened up" but the production design is so good that it doesn't really have to be. It must have had a considerable budget because the set is large and there are numerous extras. Not that it cost that much to hire extras in 1931.
The focus is on Sylvia Sidney as the daughter of a gruff, unfeeling father, and a lonely mother who is engaged in an affair. Dad returns unexpectedly from a trip and catches them in flagrante delicto.
The film is filled with stereotypes but they didn't strike me as particularly obnoxious. There's the Jewish family, the Kaplans -- the father a loud Bolshevik, the son a quiet student who is in love with Sidney, and the understanding and compassionate mother.
There's the Italian family, with the fat, good-natured father, wearing a mustache out of a barber shop quartet, singing "La Donna E Mobile" and complaining that his wife refuses to get pregnant. There's an Irishman fond of drink and a reserved family of Scandinavians. At various times, African-Americans show up, as well as Asians.
Offensive words like "Kike" and "Yid" are sometimes used, but they're used by the cocky street tough whom everyone dislikes. And we should probably keep in mind that the world was considerably less sensitive to such usage at the time, pre politically correct.
Although it's an ensemble movie, it depends a lot on Sylvia Sidney, the central character, and she delivers.
It had a curious effect on me. It impressed on me how much children have changed over the years. Here -- quite realistically -- they dance circles in the street and chant songs I can barely remember from my own childhood. The only reason kids don't play marbles is that there is no unpaved surface to dig a hole in. And girls don't skip rope anymore, do they? I'd thought it was one of the eternal verities.