Les frontières de la vie

An excellent piece of American neo-realism by the Shane brothers. (The Cohens could learn a thing or three from these boys from Patterson, NJ.) New York City becomes an "open city" worthy of Rosellini, et al -- with a wonderful mix of documentary and theatrical footage, quite an innovation for 1953. And, just so you'll get the connection, they imported an Italian to play the lead, the wonderful Vittorio Gassman, (although the Anna Magnani roll is filled by that B-Babe fave Gloria Grahame). The vintage Times Square sequences alone are worth a look. A must see for film buffs and movie lovers alike. I'm sure it's on Martin Scorcese's list.

The Glass Wall (1953)

A great idea, and two great leads--Gloria Grahame as a down and out single girl and Vittoria Gassman as a Eastern European illegal immigrant. And one mediocre directing job--by Maxwell Shane. I had just seen another Shane film that was pretty good, with some great performances ("The Naked Street" with a terrific Anthony Quinn) so I was looking forward to this. It has a great theme (facing the immigration system) and it turns our attention to the new world presence for justice, the United Nations. It also features some real musicians--Jack Teagarden and Shorty Rogers--and one straight small combo big band jazz number. (I put it that way because by 1953 the real scene in New York was bebop, this this style predates it.)

So, the best parts of this movie are terrific, mainly the middle section where the two leads help each other and start to fall in love, with hints of an urban "They Live by Night" in mood. But there are parts where you can't help but laugh, because they are either so improbable or the editing and acting is ridiculously off key. Director Shane also co-wrote this adventure, and here there are hiccups, too, even down to the central premise of a man facing deportation even though he has nowhere to go and has been on the run for a decade. For one, it's hard to believe the immigration laws were so blindly inflexible, but let's say they were. They have the reputation. But certainly New York City wouldn't get turned upside down for one man, not considered dangerous, who has slipped from custody. There are APBs and front page photos and a general panic on the order of Son of Sam.

But we understand the dilemma anyway. It's one man against the system, and that's always an easy one for choosing sides. Grahame plays a woman on the outs with great sympathy and conviction, and she's just the kind of hardened, soft-hearted girl you'd want to fall in with if you were on the lam. And the ending, as badly directed and edited as it is (you'll see), is pure Hitchcock for its setting and high drama. We are taken inside the new United Nations building called the Secretariat in Manhattan (the International Style Le Corbusier skyscraper was finished in 1952), in what must be the first Hollywood movie to do so (and perhaps the last in this manner until "The Interpreter" in 2005, the site being secret and guarded enough that Hitchcock himself in 1958 had to use a model instead of the real location).

This is one case where someone could re-edit it and have something of a minor gem, with high points making it worth the effort. As it is, the speed bumps are nearly fatal.

This film is a tribute by the amazing cinematographer, Joseph Biroc, to New York of the 50s. It's a movie that is stunning to watch as it serves to document the fun that New York was in that period after WWII. The splendid night photography of the Times Square area before the arrival of the seediness of the ensuing years, and today's theme park feeling, makes us forget that that it served as the mecca of entertainment and night life in Manhattan. We get to watch the crowds and some of the films that were playing at the time.

The director, Maxwell Shane, presents a story that might have been dramatic at the time, but in the global village, where illegal aliens are all over the city and the country, this movie shows a dated take on things since everything is different now. This is the era that Arthur Miller presented in "A View from the Bridge" about the illegal immigrants. America wasn't a tolerant nation at the time!

Vittorio Glassman, one of Italy's best actors, plays the stowaway that comes to America only to be refused entrance. No one can believe his story of survival in the European concentration camps. When he escapes into the streets of Manhattan we get the feel of what the town was like. Mr. Glassman whose body of work in the Italian cinema was unique, shows an interesting portrait as the man who is not wanted in America.

Gloria Grahame, as the girl out of luck in the naked city, plays the woman who befriends Kaban and believes him. Jerry Paris is Tom, the former G.I. who was helped by Kaban in Europe. Robin Raymond is Tanya the stripper with a heart of gold who takes Kaban home out the kindness of her heart.

The scenes at the United Nations are magnificently staged. The chase to a recently inaugurated building is one of the best things of the movie. Finally, everything that went wrong is put to order and Kaban is redeemed as a hero and a man who has told the truth from the beginning.

Aboard a Liberty ship, Vittorio Gassman passes the Statue of Liberty, prior to docking in New York, only to be informed that as a stowaway, the authorities are not at liberty to grant his liberty and accuse him of attempting to take liberties. What a liberty!

Desperate to avoid deportation and sustaining broken ribs in the process (just to add to the missing finger nails and bayonet wound he has already received courtesy of Hitler), Gassman succeeds in jumping ship and escaping into the city. His objective is to locate Tom, (Jerry Paris), a jazz clarinetist and former soldier, whose life he saved during the war. Proof that he contributed to the allied cause will allow him permanent residency in the U. S., but it is a manic race against time and in a city of eight million people, the odds are not in his favour.

Enthralled by the razzle dazzle, the affluence, opulence and optimism of Times Square by night, including the shot of a cinema showing Alan Ladd and Lizabeth Scott's Red Mountain, he remains, nonetheless immersed in the trauma of his own past and uncomfortably isolated. His search leads him to several jazz joints, where we are treated to cameos by Jack Teagarden, Shorty Rogers and the all too fleetingly glimpsed vanguard of the quiet avante-garde, groundbreaking saxophonist Jimmy Giuffre.

Along the way, he befriends misfit and kindred spirit Gloria Grahame, on the run from unwisely stealing burly Kathleen Freeman's coat, which would have looked like something from Rent a Tent draped over her comparatively sleek frame. Ignoring Petula Clark's advice they decide that the subway is the safest place to spend the night, before the anguished immigrant makes his last-ditch attempt to reach the U. N. building.

Gassman ticks all the boxes as the troubled, insecure loner, haunted by a tortured, mysterious past, injured, on the lam and embroiled in a race against the clock. The rest of the cast consists of officialdom, Gassman sympathizers and jazz musicians. Not even a whiff of a femme fatale, a corrupt syndicate or a hoodlum in this unusual noir. The closest we come to a gangster is an acne ridden teenage street punk, who hopes that Grahame gets hit by a garbage truck.

There is much to applaud in The Glass Wall, but it's not all good news....and on that subject, would one illegal immigrant REALLY be the hottest story in New York, dominating all the front pages? Whilst Joe Turkel's swaggering, over the top tirade smacks of an 'I'm way too cool for THIS movie' bravura. Gassman himself falls victim to the over acting bug, delivering a tsunami of idealistic platitudes concluding with an impassioned 'Nobody listens!' before promptly scarpering from the people who ARE prepared to listen and taking the world's fastest elevator to the roof.

However, the compassionate nature of the subject matter, the performances of Grahame and Gassman, with their 'You and me against the world' mantra, sharply tapping into our empathy with the underdog, the sights and sounds of Times Square under darkness and the jazz vignettes, all synergize to carry this movie over the line. Confronted by The Glass Wall, can those who love and support Gassman provide him with... The Glass Key?

The plot of this movie is as fresh as today's news about refugees, asylum seekers, detentions and deportations, sensationalized images of immigrants, and the question of who gets to come to the US. Peter Kaban, a displaced person seeking to enter the US (Vittorio Gassman in a touching performance), escapes from detention and begins a desperate search through nighttime New York for the jazz musician who can corroborate his claims to having saved the life of an American soldier. The story has potential as a remake (sub Syria or Honduras for Hungary, etc)!

The America the writer-director (Maxwell Shane) portrays is not the wholesome suburbia many folks associate with the 1950s, but a tough tawdry urban jungle of sexual harassment, single moms surviving as strippers (Robin Raymond in a sympathetic turn), shabby single-room occupancy buildings,exploited factory workers, kids who have to dance in the street for coins, homeless people sleeping in subways, and desperate people eating food left behind in restaurants...brilliant imagery with a Noir atmosphere.

I did not fully understand Peter's story as a displaced person. He says clearly enough that the Nazis murdered his family and that he had been in Auschwitz, but he does not fill in much between WW II and 1953 --and so in 2018, it is difficult for us to understand exactly who he is and what happened to him in that period. 7-11 million people were wandering through Europe at the end of the war as "displaced persons": Jewish survivors of the Holocaust; Poles, Germans who had lived in Eastern Europe, and Ukrainians; refugees from the Baltic countries that were incorporated into the Soviet Union; and some Nazi collaborators fleeing the Soviets. The US passed strict and rather controversial legislation as to who could come to the US (e.g., only people who were already in displaced person camps by 1945 as well as many other rules), and Peter evidently did not match the approved profile. Maybe viewers in 1953 understood the context more clearly than the average viewer does now.