Park Row

It's about a 19th century New York City newspaper editorial writer, Phineas Mitchell, who is fired when he insults the owner of the newspaper he works for, The Star. Some of his companions are also fired when they back him up. An older journalist mentions to Mitchell that he has some money - enough to start up a newspaper. And so The Globe is born with the highest journalistic standards of integrity. At first Mitchell's former employer, Charity Hackett, laughs at their efforts. But soon The Globe's innovation and enterprise are threatening her circulation and she tries to shut them down by any means, fair or foul.

This is a completely fictional story, but it incorporates enough truth to be confusing. In the 1880s Park Row was newspaper row in New York City. There was a campaign that looks like crowdfunding today to finance the pedestal for the Statue of Liberty so the monument could be completed. There was an Ottmar Mergenthaler who invented the linotype machine, the first device that could easily and quickly set complete lines of type for use in printing presses. But all of these things did not take place under one roof for one newspaper. The film does have a pretty accurate depiction of newspaper printing as it occurred in the late 1800s, and that is the most interesting aspect of it.

I could deal with the confusion, but then there is the ham fisted romance/ sexual tension between The Star's Charity Hackett and The Globe's Phineas Mitchell. It reminded me of Hill Street Blues' romance between police captain Frank Furillo and public defender Joyce Davenport - If these two people really believe in what they are doing, how could they ever be attracted to one another? But then I am showing my age to explain a 70 year old movie in terms of a 40 year old TV show.

Overall, I'd recommend it. This was a passion project for Sam Fuller as he used his own money to produce it. Just be prepared for it to be a bit of an uneven ride.

Before becoming a B-movie specialist and one of American cinema's finest filmmakers, Sam Fuller was a journalist who once worked as a crime reporter for The New York Daily Graphic. He made his great pictures in headlines, something more akin to tabloid journalism and sensationalism. "Every newsman is a potential filmmaker", Fuller once said and explicitly used it in "Park Row", an intensely personal work in which he financed with his own money but unfortunately failed miserably when it came out.

"Park Row" is small but an engaging and entertaining tribute to American journalism. Under the opening credits we see a huge rolling title that lists about 2,000 American daily newspapers and this story is dedicated to them.

Set in the 1880s New York, the film is about the rivalry between The Globe and The Star. An aspiring newspaper editor (Gene Evans) sets up his own daily The Globe after a man jumps off the Brooklyn Bridge. He struggles to compete with his former employer's (Mary Welch) newspaper The Star, who happens to be in love with him, while the Statue of Liberty is being donated to the U.S. by France.

Unlike Fuller's bleak and lurid "Shock Corridor", "Park Row" is full of reverential optimism and is packed with so much gusto and excitement, featuring some terrific tracking shots that will make your head spin.

Highly recommended.

In this day and age where the print media is struggling to survive back in 1886 when this story takes place New York had something like 20 papers all fighting for circulation. A lot of them came and went with great rapidity. Many were backed by the political parties of the day and they sustained them.

Park Row is the street to the east of New York City's City Hall and it only runs three short blocks. But back in 1886 several papers of the tabloid variety had their offices and printing establishments there. This film Park Row is the story of two of them where the feuding got downright personal.

Mary Hackett who is a real queen of mean fires a whole bunch of her staff over editorial policy disagreement including Gene Evans who takes the fired workers and starts his own tabloid. He gets a super big break when George O'Hanlon playing the legendary Steve Brodie makes his famous dive off the Brooklyn Bridge and Evans gets the bead on the story first. After that Hackett fights and fights real dirty. She especially doesn't like the fact that Evans has spurned her.

Samuel Fuller directed this admirable B film with a cast of no real names, but that in itself gives it a realistic look. That look is at an era that is gone, but not forgotten. By the way another look at this same era can be seen in the film Newsies which is currently on Broadway now.

Still without the singing and dancing of Newsies, I think Park Row will give you an idea of what was going on during those times.

Sam Fuller's brilliant direction combines a tatty set, low watt cast, and potentially preachy and pedantic script into a small masterpiece...seemingly with the sheer electric passion of his film sense. Superb use of camera takes ordinary talking head shots and makes them off kilter peeks into the clash of opposing souls. The passion filled but low key love/hate/love interplay between opposing editors played by Gene Evans and Mary Welch is one of the most adult and genuine dark romances in cinema history (how sad that this was only major appearance for Welch...who died in 1958). Fuller's lauded tracking shots...including some which seem to have the camera being tossed about like a football in an effort to keep up with the action..are very much in evidence...but film is most striking for it's effortless ability to capture the quiet passion and integrity of one mans devotion to the craft of journalism...a devotion so strong that great love for an unscrupulous competitor was no obstacle...a devotion so great that his insight and passion helped transform the press into the behemoth it is today. Any film that can turn the creation of linotype into a miracle of discovery is a wonder. Check out this 83 minute masterwork...rediscover how alive film can be.

One of my favorites from Samuel Fuller; a frenzied, kinetic melodrama about journalism in the late 1800's. Although the film is laughably unrealistic at times in it's portrayal of two major newspapers competing for more readers, this is no hindrance to one's enjoyment of the film.

Never did Fuller create a film of such sheer energy and nostalgia. The film's tracking shots and frenetically-edited montages seem to get the most attention, but there are also some great monologues and magnificent performances, particularly from Mary Welch as the head of the "evil" newspaper, The Star, and Gene Evans as the leader of their opposing newspaper, The Globe.

The film has it's moments of campiness, but overall it's one of cinema's overlooked classics.