Sidewalks of New York

SIDEWALKS OF NEW YORK (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1931), a Buster Keaton production directed by Jules White and Zion Meyers, offers comedian Buster Keaton a different type of comedy, that involving social issues. A sort of forerunner to what later developed into "The East Side Kids" comedy-drama series over at Monogram (1940-45) that featured the notable cast of Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall and Gabriel Dell, all of whom originated as "The Dead End Kids" based on their characterizations from the 1935 Broadway drama and 1937 film based adaptation, DEAD END. SIDEWALKS doesn't focus completely on the youths by letting Keaton take second precedence, but on Keaton's character as one who offers his assistance in helping boys of the slums (labeled as "The East Side Kids" from a newspaper clipping) by steering them on the right direction of life, with humorous results. Reportedly labeled, even by Keaton himself, as his "worst movie," SIDEWALKS, according to sources, proved to be his most successful MGM comedy to date, something that even Keaton couldn't understand.

Opening from the skyline view of New York City with an off-screen vocalist singing "East Side, West Side," before camera sets precedence on the lower east side of Manhattan, the pattern is immediately set with the introduction with a group of kids, led by Clipper Kelly (Norman Phillips Jr.), playing baseball on the street. Poggle (Cliff Edwards), personal secretary to millionaire landlord, Homer Van Dine Harmon (Buster Keaton), arrives by limousine into the tenement district to collect rent money from the tenants, resulting to a riot. Returning to Homer's mansion with injuries and minus the money, Harmon decides to do the job himself, meeting with the same results. After Homer gets punched by a tough blonde named Margie (Anita Page) for grabbing hold of her brother, Clipper, trying to get away, he immediately falls in love with her (Homer: "do you believe in love at first site?"). Instead of pressing charges on the urchins in the courtroom, Homer, for the sake of Margie, and with Poggle's assistance, helps the tough youths by providing them the Harmony Hall Boys Club. Butch (Frank Rowan), a neighborhood mobster wanting to steer the boys to his level of crime, intends on having Harmon fail in his purpose by using Clipper in a series of robberies dressed as "The Blonde Bandit."

Definitely a far cry from Keaton's usual flare of creative comedy from the silent era, the is MGM's attempt in trying something more different than originality. Keaton is still the "stoneface," but under MGM regime, continues on being a prat-falling, lovesick bumbler. Unlike his previous MGM assignments, Keaton isn't called "Elmer," nor is he under the direction of Edward Sedgwick. Rather than having one director, SIDEWALKS has two. In some ways, it helps to a degree, succeeding more in areas of inserted comedy than plot. A pity the emphases wasn't on both that would have helped considerably. Regardless of its poor reputation and little known overview in Keaton's filmography, there's still some funny material worth noting: The courtroom scene with Homer on the witness stand with lines and situations repeated to perfection in the Three Stooges comedy short, DISORDER IN THE COURT (Columbia, 1936); a fixed wrestling match between Homer and "One-Round" Mulvaney (Syd Saylor) at the athletic club; Homer's proposal to Margie with the use of a phonograph record; and Homer's preparation of roast duck dinner with Margie and Clipper. The Harmon stage presentation of "The Duke and the Dancer" subtitled "Bad Habits Don't Pay" with Keaton in drag doesn't come off as well as it should, and neither does the final minutes resembling that of an "Our Gang" comedy for Hal Roach Studios come off with any hilarity.

The casting of Anita Page (Keaton's co-star in 1930s FREE AND EASY) as the tough talking slum girl isn't very convincing, though Norman Phillips Jr. as her troublesome teenage brother is as acceptable as Frank Rowan's silent era stereotypical gangster role. One of the major faults in SIDEWALKS is its poor editing, more noticeable where Margie disappears from view after leaving Harmon. Scenes where players get struck lightly on the jaw and immediately lying unconscious on the ground is something more of a head slapping/eye-rolling response from disbelief.

As with the MGM/Keaton comedies, SIDEWALKS OF NEW YORK is an odd mix of comedy/drama, yet it somehow manages to become better than the others produced during that time. Rarely shown on broadcast television, this, along with DOUGHBOYS (1930) did turn up as recently as 1978 on a late night showing from WKBS TV, Channel 48, in Philadelphia. Distributed to home video in 1993, SIDEWALKS can be seen occasionally on Turner Classic Movies. (**)

Bumbling wealthy landlord Mr. Harmon (Buster Keaton) is surprised to find his property fall into chaos caused by rowdy kids. Margie Kelly comes to aid of her little brother and knocks Harmon down. It's love at first sight for him. He decides to help the kids to win her over. It's tougher than he imagined with Margie's brother Clipper working with criminal Butch.

Silent super star Buster Keaton had mixed results during the sound era. This film is one of his successes. It does allow Buster to do his physical comedy. It's relatively funny although the seriousness of Clipper's dilemma is not that fun. Buster is still physically impressive. I do miss a large constructed stunt. While this is not at the level of his silent classics, this does allow Buster to play his character and be the butt of the joke. The romance is nice. It's not high class but Buster does his work well.

Keaton always referred to this film as a horror. No, it's not "The General" or "Our Hospitality". As in "Doughboys", another sound film with bad reputation which turns out to be very, very funny, Buster is paired with Cliff "Jiminy Cricket" Edwards. The chemistry between them is much better than the later pairing of Keaton with Jimmy Durante. The film is co-directed by Jules White, the driving force behind the Columbia short comedies from 1934 through 1958. We even see Keaton performing a routine done only a few years later by Curly Howard in "Disorder in the Court". Though the routine is more suited to Curly's comedy style, Keaton is very funny in this sequence. White was a director who believed that if something wasn't funny, at least make it fast and make it violent. White's reliance on comic violence is at odds with Keaton's art and is even more apparent in the comedy shorts Keaton made at Columbia in the late '30s and '40s. Interestingly, this film introduces a group of kids referred to as "East Side Kids". Did Sam Katzman get his inspiration here? One will never know.

One of the hardest things about watching the talkies MGM stuck Buster Keaton in isn't necessarily how awful they are (although Free and Easy (1930) IS awful), but how underwhelming they are. Gone are Keaton's outrageous stunts and understated sense of humor. In their place are set-bound scripts with uninspired slapstick and half-wit jokes. This precisely defines Sidewalks of New York (1932), perhaps the most boring of all the Keaton MGM films.

Keaton, Cliff Edwards, and Anita Page are all wasted on insipid material. I feel especially bad for Page, who's stuck screaming half the time. Buster has little to do other than look foolish in the most unfunny ways possible, though at least his character isn't nearly as idiotic as he was in Free and Easy. The only decent bit he got was a scene where he tries and fails to carve a roasted duck. Oh well, at least Durante isn't running about the set screeching, else this would be downright painful.

Maybe this isn't the worst movie Buster Keaton ever appeared in, but in my opinion it sure felt like a long, long way to spend 74 minutes, and I regret to say that the 'The End' title came as something of a relief. Buster was a truly great comedian, but watching this film is no way to appreciate his talent, especially if you've never seen his best work from the silent days. Viewers unfamiliar with the details of his career should know right off that Keaton made this movie (and his other early talkies) during an unhappy stint at MGM, where he was denied creative control of his material and forced to take ill-fitting assignments. Sidewalks of New York is a prime example from a generally dismal series. Recently I was sorry to find a VHS copy of the film on the shelf with other videos at a local library, and to make matters worse they didn't appear to have any of Keaton's other, better movies, just this one. Wherever he is, Buster is grimacing.

What's wrong with it? Well, where to start? The dialog is generally labored and witless, but feels even worse because this is an early talkie with no musical score whatsoever, so the actors exchange their clunky jokes accompanied only by the low hiss of the soundtrack. Next problem, the casting is off. Buster has been assigned the role of Homer Van Dine Harmon, a dim-witted product of Old Money. This sort of part suited him in silent movies due to his elegant appearance, but it feels all wrong in a talkie because, let's face it, the man didn't speak in the cultivated tones of a moneyed person sent to the finest schools. (I'm trying to phrase this delicately.) Buster Keaton was a brilliant comic artist but he was not well educated, at least not in the conventional sense. He grew up backstage and learned all about show business, not subjects they teach at Harvard. His voice was harsh and his grammar was poor, and he tended to impose his own phrasing on the dialog he was given, so he'd say things like "That don't feel good." He doesn't sound like a child of privilege, and when he's given such bogus things to say as "You strike me as a trifle unbalanced," as in this film, he sounds even less so. Furthermore, Homer's dimness lacks the distinctive eccentricity Buster displayed in his best silent comedies: he's merely stupid. Worse still, MGM has placed Buster's annoyingly dim-witted millionaire in the middle of a sentimentalized Lower East Side slum, full of picturesque Little Tough Guys with nicknames like Baloney. The real-world euphemism for "Baloney" sums up this script succinctly.

The plot hinges on Homer's attempts to clean up the slum and provide the kids with wholesome activities; his primary motivation is to impress Margie (Anita Page), the older sister of one of the boys. The Hollywood ghetto feels phony, and the script's version of snappy dialog is painful at times, but even so this premise might have offered the potential for decent visual comedy if those genuinely dim-witted millionaires who ran MGM had allowed their star to develop some of his characteristic set-pieces. But no, this project has the look of something cranked out in a hurry, and the exquisitely funny routines we remember from Keaton's silent features have been reduced to mercilessly repetitive bits in which Buster gets punched, trips, flails, drops things, clunks his head, breaks more stuff, and falls over again.

Even Keaton's weakest comedies usually have a scene or two worth seeing. (Perhaps the only exception is the abysmal feature he made in Mexico in the mid-1940s: all prints of that one should be seized with fireplace tongs and tossed into a raging furnace.) Sidewalks of New York provides a moment or two, but the pickings are pretty slim. There's a modestly funny sequence in which Buster attempts to carve a roast duck, and another in which he and Cliff Edwards mess up an amateur stage performance, but any comedian worthy of the name could have performed these scenes. Keaton's MGM bosses just couldn't figure out what made him unique, or else they just didn't care. On balance, there's no compelling reason to see this movie, and I'd suggest that the 74 minutes it takes to view it could be more profitably and enjoyably spent watching any of Buster's silent features.