1931 - Es geschah in Amerika

Tony Anthony had the idea, produced, stars and - it's a very good film! He's talking about ten times as much in the first fifteen minutes as in all other films with him together - and while the credits roll, he shows us more facial reactions, too. Some unpleasant scenes make you shiver, and the last 20 minutes are full of powerful pictures nearly without dialogue. Don't know about the English dubbing my fellow commentarist notices, the German one is okay. Papas, Stander and Conte only have guest roles, right, but Celi is adorable and Lucretia Love a pleasure to see. Recommended for those who want to see more Tony Anthony suffering.

I paid for a ticket and managed to sit through this stinky badly paced badly dubbed overacted incomprehensible amateurish attempt at a movie when it played the Vogue Theater in Vancouver in 1973. To this day I still kick myself for not walking out but it was raining and the bus wasn't due for 2 hours. I am reviewing it here because I've decided in 40 years of avid movie going - and movie making, this is the worst movie I ever saw. The plot as I recall involved some gangster double crossing and looked like it was all shot in and around a gravel pit or someplace. The costumes and dressings were bizarre Dubbed dialogue was as grating as could be. I don't remember what the photography was like but overall It was truly a painful viewing experience

Tony Anthony wrote and stars in this slow moving action film that has him as a small time hood who offers a gangster (Adolpho Celi) a deal of a lifetime. A half a million dollars hidden in a Irene Papas's dead husbands body. But Celi double cross Anthony leaving him to go on a revenge. Papas only appears for 3 minutes, Richard Conte has a nothing role in the first reel only appearing for about a minute. Lionel Stander only appears once as Anthony's friend. Stander is dubbed by some young british guy trying to talk like him. Conte and Celi is dubbed by a 20 year old voice with no action experience. Anthony is good, but the film just isn't there. Not recommended.

I watched parts of this film being made about 30 years ago. My dad is not visible but drives some of the old cars in it. The exteriors were nearly all shot in north-central WV, within about 15 miles of my house. But the film was never distributed here and it was not until about a month ago that I finally got to see the finished product.

Film is a standard revenge actioner and could have been done as a spaghetti western or a costumer, had those genres been in vogue at the time. I've only seen the video version released as "1931: Once Upon a Time in New York" (but it all takes place in WV!). The dubbing is hideous and the 1.33:1 image cut down from 'scope shows why this is nearly always a bad thing to do.

In particular, it's possible that the full image might even show a more youthful 12-stringer on the sidewalk! (I was atmosphere in a couple of shots but you probably wouldn't recognize me without the guitar.) So maybe cropping isn't such a bad thing after all ...

However, it was a real treat for me to see pictures of places that are no longer there, particularly in downtown Farmington, WV. The railroad station, the Gango store block, the drug store and Carter Henderson buildings, the liquor store -- nearly all of which are parking lots now! The structures left from the filming days have been so altered that no one would ever attempt to film a 1931 sequence on the streets today. Of course, if they did, my dad, at 82, could still handle the Model T driving chores.

I really can't recommend the picture for its dramatic values, in this badly-dubbed and severely cropped video version, but it's worth a 5/10 rating to me just to take that little journey to the past.