Lights of New York

This is an important historical film since it was the the first all-talking feature film.

The film was made for a mere 23,000 dollars.

It grossed over a million dollars upon its release.

This film all so helped define the gangster melodramas that were to become the bread and butter of the Warner's studio in the 1930's.

The popularity of this film ended the silent era more so than its more famous part-talkie predecessor, the Jazz Singer. The film deserves its place in history and not as a mere footnote.

The only actor who might be remember today that is in it was Eugene Palette.

EARLY talkie... even the poster said "first all talking picture". stars Helene Costello as Kitty, well-meaning chorus girl. Co stars Cullen Landis as Eddie. Eugene pallette is in here as Gene, the barber. He wasn't so big yet, but still had the lower, deep voice. Bootleggers move in. and unfortunately, that's where the money is. the timing is odd, but it IS one of the early talkies, so technical difficulties are to be expected. Speak-easies. the mob. Wheeler Oakman is "the Hawk", mob boss. Wheeler died young at 59... sadly, Costello also died quite young at 50, of tuberculosis. Directed by prolific Bryan Foy, who actually was one (the oldest) of the Seven Little Foys! warner brothers shortie, at only 57 minutes. This one is interesting for history's sake, since it claims to be the first all talking picture, with no music. after the silents, they even have title cards here and there to explain things. It's okay. more important as a piece of history.

LIGHTS OF NEW YORK was the first "all-taking" feature film, coming in at a brisk 57 minutes and directed by Bryan Foy (of the famous vaudeville family).

The story has two dopey barbers (Cullen Landis, Eugene Palette) yearning for a chance at "big city life" and getting involved with gangsters and bootleg booze. One of the guys gets framed for the murder of a cop but is saved at the last minute by a gun moll (Gladys Brockwell).

Much of the story takes place in a night club called The Night Hawk, which is run by a crook named Hawk (Wheeler Oakman) who has his eye on a pretty chorine (Helene Costello) who is the girl friend of Landis. Costello gets to do a brief dance, and we hear Harry Downing (made up to resemble Ted Lewis) sing "At Dawning) in his best Al Jolson style.

The acting ranges from good (Palette and Brockwell) to awful (Oakman). A couple of the actors muff their lines but then keep right on with the scene. As noted elsewhere this was intended to be a short 2-reeler and was made on a shoestring budget. Yet the sound quality is surprisingly good, the voices all register clearly, and there is a neat cinematic touch in the silhouette death.

The film was a box-office smash even though it was shown as a silent film where theaters were not wired for the new sound technology. No one expected this little film to gross an amazing $1.3 million. It briefly made stars of Costello and Landis and certainly launched Palette on his long career as a star character actor.

Co-stars include Mary Carr as the mother, Robert Elliott as the detective, Eddie Kane as the street cop, and Tom Dugan as a thug.

Fascinating and amusingly bad, Lights of New York is the first all talkie feature and one that almost never saw the light of day.

Two naive barbers (Eddie and Gene) from out of town get involved with bootleggers and end up fronting a speak. When a cop is shot by one of the bootleggers the police start to close in, and the Hawk (who shot the officer) decides to pin the murder on Eddie instructing his henchman to "take him for a ride". But it's the Hawk himself who takes the bullet in a twist that will surprise few.

Shot in one week at a cost of $23,000, "Lights" was originally meant as a two reeler but Foy took advantage of Jack Warner's absence to extend it to six. When Warner discovered this he ordered Foy to cut it back to the original short. Only when an independent exhibitor offered $25k for the film, did Warners actually look at the film, which went on to make a staggering $1.3 million.

Seen now this is an extremely hokey piece, with acting that ranges from the passable (Eugene Pallette) to trance like (Eddie's Granny in a particularly risible scene) and much of the playing is at the level of vaudeville. Since it's an early talkie (4 part-talkies preceded it) that's about all the characters do, and very slowly at that. The script feels improvised, visual style is non existent (apart from the shooting scene done in silhouette) and scenes grind on interminably. Title cards are intercut which redundantly announce characters and locales.

Despite all this "Lights" is a compelling experience, as we watch actors and crew struggling with the alien technology, and changing cinema for ever.

Catch it if you can

Lights of New York (1928)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Eddie (Cullen Landis) lives in a small town but dreams of the big city just forty-five minutes away. He talks his mom into letting him go to New York City to visit his girl Kitty (Helene Costello) as well as try to make something for himself. Before you know it Eddie is in New York but he's gotten conned into a bootleg racket by the criminal Hawk Miller (Wheeler Oakman).

Everyone knows the history of THE JAZZ SINGER and how it introduced the world to talking pictures. That movie only had portions of it that were sound but all of that changed with LIGHTS OF NEW YORK, which would be the first all sound picture. It's rather interesting that the film has so much history behind it and yet it was hard to see for many decades and just finally got released to DVD in April of 2018.

When you watch this film you can talk about its place in history, the technique of its use of sound and the movie itself. I'll start with the movie itself, which is mildly entertaining thanks in large part to it just running 57-minutes. The film is rather short but there's no question it's rather unoriginal and especially the story of a small town boy going to the "evil" big city and finding bad stuff. It's not original and there's nothing fresh done with it outside of the dialogue and sound effects.

The performances are all pretty stiff but this here goes to the technology. Mics had to be hidden all over the place to pick up the actor's dialogue and quite often the actors had to stand very close to them. You can tell there were various problems because more times than not the actors in the film are standing close to each other for no reason than so the mics can pick up what they're saying. In fact, there's one scene where you can hardly hear a woman speaking until she takes a step up and then her dialogue becomes audible. With that in mind, it makes sense why some of the performances are rather bad and at times the actors seem to be shouting to get them heard. It should be stated that the star of the picture, Landis, appeared in over a hundred movies but would just make two more after this one.

LIGHTS OF NEW YORK is certainly going to appeal to film buffs who want to see the first sound picture. That alone makes it worth watching but it's also fascinating to see where the technology was at this point and how it hampered the picture. There are some obvious issues with the picture and there's no question that it doesn't have anything original about it but at the same time the movie remains entertaining and worth watching.