Les nuits de New York

It's not a feature, but a compilation of three shorter stories with the same central cast: Estelle Taylor, Marc McDermott and Harry Sothern. They each concern themselves with the unsavory things that happen after dark. It's a movie-making technique that is still in occasional use. Last year, the Coen brothers did THE BALLAD OF BUSTER SCRUGGS, in which they told several stories set in the cinematic west.

In the first story, an unkempt, unshaven Mr. McDermott, shows up to blackmail Miss Taylor, lest he tell her husband he was her first husband. In the second, she seduces Mr. McDermott and becomes his mistress.

The third story is the longest of the three and the most complicated. Miss Taylor is fired from her day job. Her night job is looking after Harry Sothern's paralyzed father, Mr. McDermott while Sothern is working as a night watchman. They get married, but when Sothern's wharf is robbed and he is tied up, one of the thieves, Earl Metcalfe, makes his escape and holes up in the attic, where Miss Taylor and he fall in love.

It looks like Raoul Walsh used this last one as a piece of 1932's ME AND MY GAL.

It shows the actors in some range, and doubtless there was the thought that if the feature version didn't work -- or even if it did -- it could be chopped up for shorts. It was also intended to show the range of the actors; today it would be considered as Oscar bait for best performers. It's certainly entertaining, but Miss Taylor's style of acting is very broad, her characters run the gamut from dull to tawdry, and she quickly palled on me. Mr. McDermott is good in the first two stories, but in the third, he's limited by playing a character who's paralyzed. It's actually Mr. Sothern, who is clearly playing a supporting role in all three, that had the most interesting variety.

As for the stories, I found the second, clearly intended as a comedy, the most appealing. Well, that's me. Anything for a laugh.

This film consists of three stories of crime in New York City featuring the same actors in different roles each time. These gritty stories about working class people were directed by Charles Brabin, better known as Theda Bara's husband. The criminals weren't just greedy in these films, they were downright shifty and clever. Since it is an early (1920) feature with a lot of violence, the acting is not as naturalistic as it would be later in the 1920s. All three stories are O'Henry-type stories with a twist at the end.

In the first story, Estelle Taylor's husband leaves her and the baby at home when called in late to work. A bum sneaks into her house, but he's not any old burglar. He's her deceased, convict first husband, who wasn't really killed in a train wreck. While he is threatening her, another burglar sneaks in, expecting to break into the safe. In the commotion, one of the characters is killed, and the other two make an interesting pact.

In the second story, a rich man (Marc McDermott) meets a fancy lady (Taylor again) at the Ziegfeld Follies. They see each other for a while, until she discovers that the man is married. She begs the man to get a divorce and marry her, but he refuses. She kills herself with a gun. McDermott is distraught, and a man comes into the scene and is really upset because he is Taylor's husband. The story has a couple of surprising twists, but I won't give away the amusing ending.

In the final, longest story, Estelle Taylor is an orphaned woman who loses her job at a sewing sweatshop. Her other job is to take care of a quadriplegic man (McDermott again). The man's son loves her, and she marries him just to have someone support her. An organized gang pulls a silk theft at the docks where Taylor's husband is the guard. He is able to free himself enough to call the police. The police catch all but one of the crooks, who swims away and makes it to Taylor's and McDermott's apartment. Taylor is attracted to the criminal, and she nurses him back to health in the attic of the apartment. A couple of weeks later, Taylor's husband catches her talking to the criminal, precipitating a violent ending. The "hook" of the story is that McDermott's character sees everything, but cannot speak or move. The only way that he can communicate with his son or the police is to move and blink his eyes. The last two stories are very suspenseful, and this film is a must-see for silent film fans.

Highly entertaining silent crime/suspense drama which showcases three vignettes of the city, all featuring the same small group of actors. The first story tells the tale of a woman left home alone one evening while hubby works late. Her baby is scared in bed (and a dream of demons is visualized above the toddler's head), the wife is shaking in her boots for good reason - an unkempt, grubby-looking man suddenly appears in the house who turns out to be her first husband whom she thought to be dead (and at the same time, an actual burglar is in the house, trying to break into the safe!). The second story features a vamp who seduces a man while attending the Follies. He is married but doesn't know *she* is until a man shows up at her apartment just as he is about to cut off the affair - twists to follow.

The third story is about "the paralytic", an old man completely paralyzed - he can hear, blink and move his eyes, and that's it. Unable to talk, he simply sits and watches - his only joy, his "heaven" as the title card states, is his adult son, a night watchman who lives with him. A rather seedy local seamstress has a side job caring for the old man for $3 a week - but when she loses her main job after a brawl with another woman, the son convinces her to marry him and have use of ALL his money. In a loveless marriage she soon turns to a secret love affair with a gangster who she has hidden in their attic after he has committed a robbery - and soon they have murdered the husband and disposed of the body (down an oddly placed trapdoor leading to the outside, placed right in the center of the main room of the house), all witnessed by the paralyzed father who can't talk!

This film includes lots of twists and turns, each short story in itself quite absorbing and interesting. I especially enjoyed the third story in this - the image of the "paralytic man" has really stuck in my head, quite memorable. Marc McDermott, who plays him, gives a really top-notch performance here portraying his emotions with just his eyes. Beautiful Estelle Taylor is also very good playing the female in each of the three stories. This film is a real winner; well worth seeing.

Three stories ostensibly about New York, though really only the last one is -- the others could have been set anywhere. But the gimmick is that in each story the same three main actors play the three main parts. The stories are surprisingly good in an O. Henry-type of way. Sometimes the acting gets into that over-the-top histrionics you may dread in silent films, but frequently it seems quite modern and undated. First story's about the wife of a rich man who gets blackmailed by a mysterious person from her past. Second one is about a vamp who picks up a rich man in a club... and he happens to be married. Third one is set in the poverty-stricken East Side (with lots of great exteriors on the river) about a woman who marries a man she doesn't love and has to care for his paralyzed father. All very worthwhile, even if Charles Brabin's style is sometimes stodgy. Wish it were on DVD. Saw it at Cinecon 43 in Hollywood.