Side Street

SIDE STREET (RKO Radio, 1929), written and directed by Malcolm St. Clair, is an early talkie starring natural Irish brothers playing fictional Irish siblings. Starring the Moore Brothers (not the Marx Brothers) featuring Tom, Owen and Matt, it's a dramatic story filmed like a stage play set in apartments with limited intercut street scenes and no underscoring, not even during the opening and closing credits. In spite of these handicaps for anyone accustomed for more improved methods found through the development in latter sound movies, SIDE STREET is something to consider for what it has to offer: all dialogue, a dancing sequence performed by the uncredited future star actor by the name of George Raft.

Set in New York City, the plot development begins in the apartment of the O'Farrell family: Mr. O'Farrell (Frank Sheridan), retired police officer with wife, Nora (Emma Dunn), devoted mother of three grown sons: Jimmy (Tom Moore), a policeman; John (Matt Moore), educated in medical school with the help of his older brother, Dennis (Owen Moore), a piano player and businessman by profession. With Jimmy discussing with his father about gangland killings headed by mobster Barney Muller, a shooting occurs during their dinner gathering outside their building. Jim Burke, a friend of the family is identified and believed to be the murder victim by the Muller mob. Engaged to Kathleen Doyle (Kathryn Perry), Jimmy finally gets his promotion to plainclothesman detective with his first assignment being the investigation on the Muller case. As Kathleen returns home with her friend Bunny (Mildred Harris), they are invited by Max Kimball (Charles Byer) to attend a Park Avenue cocktail party. While here, Kathleen not only meets up with the notorious Barney Muller, so does John arriving on ambulance duty to take in Pinky (Dan Wolheim), an injured guest with skull fracture to the hospital. For reasons of their own, both decide to keep Muller's identity a secret from Jimmy.

Other members in the cast include Arthur Housman, Walter McNamara, Al Hill, Heinie Conklin and Raymond Turner. Aside from the story coming to life with the presence of then unknown George Raft (as Georgie Ames), there's nice vocalization by June Clyde (as Judy) with chorus girls dancing to "Take a Look at Her Now." Aside from George Raft's solo dancing in the best George Raft style, he does have some spoken dialogue in the story as well set during the cocktail party sequence. How fortunate SIDE STREET has survived intact all these years or else it would have never been known that George Raft ever appeared in this virtually unknown production.

With the careers of the three Moore brothers dating back to the earliest days of the silent era, their transition to talkies were well established, but by 1929 they were no longer popular individual leading men as they were back decades ago.

Probably due to primitive production style of spoken dialogue echoes and lack of marquee names by today's standards have limited SIDE STREET from ever being televised. Regardless of its age, SIDE STREET does have some interesting touches found in early talkies, namely an individual scene where two brothers are conversing while the other is on telephone in the background, hearing all three voices talking over one another, making it evident that talkies are here to stay.

Never distributed on video cassette nor DVD format, SIDE STREET did have some limited cable television broadcasts over the years: American Movie Classics (1988-1991) and Turner Classic Movies. Story material might have proved beneficial had SIDE STREET been remade as a second feature in the late thirties possibly casting Preston Foster in the lead, with better film-making technology and pacing that would have improved over its original. As it stands now, this is the one and only. (**1/2)

This is an interesting little family drama around three Irish brothers...one is a police officer, John, one is a doctor, Jimmy, and the third is a bootlegging gangster(but the family doesn't know because he is operating under a pseudonym)-Denny. The three converge for family dinners with their parents, Mrs. Nora 'Farrell and Mr. Tom 'Farrell, who are loving and supportive. John gets promoted to detective and gets engaged with his girl friend, Kathleen Doyle...which causes quite the family conundrum as Kathleen has accidentally met Denny under his pseudonym and John has been given his first task as detective to take him down. Not knowing that Kathleen is John's fiancé, Denny puts out a hit on Kathleen. But Jimmy is the first to find out who Denny is as his pseudonym...when he is called to his apartment for an injured man post a fight at one of his cocktail parties.

"He hasn't got enough blarney to win a girl like you"

"Cut out the Sherlock Holmes stuff you're off duty."- Denny

"The only place a man is safe nowadays is in jail."

I didn't quite know where this story was going, but I knew it wouldn't be good. I do find it interesting that the brothers collectively choose to lie to their parents. I'm also kind of glad that no innocents were taken out. This is the only film I have ever seen that starred three actual Irish brothers...playing three Irish brothers! The three Moore siblings had all achieved acting fame and I think this might be the only film containing all three together. It was fun to see George Raft have a little cameo, I didn't know he could dance! This was kind of a b-track for me, but it was enjoyable.

I give this 7/10 stars when compared with other early talking films. The dialogue flows well and it has an interesting plot with a few interesting footnotes. First off, the three Irish-American O'Farrell brothers are played by three Irish American brothers - Tom, Owen, and Matt Moore. Jimmy (Tom Moore) is a cop, John (Matt Moore) is an emergency room doctor, and Dennis (Owen Moore) tells his family he is a businessman when actually he is a big time gangster and bootlegger. Another footnote - look closely when Dennis O'Farrell is in his speakeasy. That is George Raft dancing to "Take a Look at Her Now" as the chorus girls back him up. Other than a couple of throw-away lines, though, that is all Raft does in the entire film. Finally, Emma Dunn, who plays Nora O'Farrell, mother of the three boys, is anywhere from only nine to 14 years older than the actors that play her sons yet does indeed look and act old enough to be their mother.

The story moves slowly at first - the older O'Farrells are proud of their three boys as they all sit down to dinner. It appears that the older O'Farrells are retired and probably their sons are supporting them in their old age, as was the custom at the time. Dennis has a completely different name that he is known as when he is living his "other life" as a criminal. His criminal associates do not know his real name or his origin in order to shield his family from any criminal reprisals. Likewise he has one brother - the cop - who wants to hunt his criminal alias down and arrest him, and another brother that is constantly seeing the emergency cases that are the results of his gang's shootouts. Thus Dennis has a lot of balls in the air and can never let his guard down. However he is managing to keep this juggling act going until the night that one drunk at his speakeasy cracks another drunk in the head and the doctor sent from the hospital is his brother John, and one of the girls that visits the speakeasy that same night with her friend turns out to be the girl that his brother Jimmy plans to marry.

Notice that what makes it possible for Dennis and all other 20's gangsters to become rich - Prohibition - isn't taken seriously by anyone. When Dennis brings a bottle of good booze to his parents' house as a gift on Thanksgiving, his dad and his friend have no problem with getting sauced even with dad's son the cop in the house who just smiles and finds the whole situation amusing.

I'd recommend this one if you have even the slightest interest in and tolerance for the early talking films. It is actually entertaining and not just a curio and shows what RKO had a talent for in its earliest days - showing rather ordinary people caught up in extraordinary circumstances.

This is one of RKO's first films. It's also the only pairing of all three Moore brothers. It also features nightclub dancer George Raft in one of his first attempts to break into films (after this he didn't appear again until 1931 when he was "discovered.") Sadly, this film is all curiosity value and nothing else. The Moore brothers are mostly terrible (Owen, playing the gangster, being the only one with any talent for handling dialogue). Raft is actually better and livelier than the Moore boys even though his part is slim. There is also no music score whatsoever, outside of the nightclub sequence with Raft, thus what little dramatic force the film has is left dry by the silent soundtrack. The story is the typical brothers-gone-separate-ways stuff (one is a cop involved in murder case that leads to other brother who is gangster) with the only difference being that there is a third brother (a doctor) in the middle. But the Doctor's part isn't very interesting, so it doesn't distract from the clichés, unfortunately. Sound killed the Moore brothers' careers and this film easily shows us why.

Three sons of Irish immigrants live and work in New Your City. They are blond doctor Matt Moore (as John O'Farrell), jovial policeman Tom Moore (as Jimmy O'Farrell) and mysteriously well-dressed Owen Moore (as Denny O'Farrell). The trio gather for dinner with their parents. Nobody suspects gift-bearing brother Owen is wealthy due to engaging in criminal activities. They think he's just a businessman who travels. Owen's real-life wife Kathryn Perry (as Ton's fiancée) and her brother-in-law John have eye-opening moments. You won't have trouble figuring out what happens between Owen and his brothers...

Written and directed by Malcolm St. Clair, this was his first real "all-talking" picture and the veteran filmmaker is clearly restricted by the microphone...

The main attraction, at the time, was seeing the three Moore brothers perform in a sound film, together. However, by 1929, this couldn't have been much of a lure. Their great appeal isn't exactly clear in "Side Street", so looking back is recommended. The brothers were present early on, and became much bigger stars when Owen was discovered to have married Mary Pickford. She was the gold standard. The more recent generations of film-goers will enjoy watching George Raft in a small, but very impressive role. A future "gangster" genre film star, Mr. Raft was quite a dancer; he and June Clyde make good impressions.

**** Side Street (9/8/29) Malcolm St. Clair ~ Owen Moore, Tom Moore, Matt Moore, Katherine Perry