The Glass Wall

A pungent period flavor of post-war New York elevates Maxwell Shane's The Glass Wall. If it's not quite noir (its idealism disqualifies it), it sure looks and feels like noir. As well it should, coming from the writer/director of those unambiguous noirs Fear in the Night (1947) and its remake Nightmare (1956).

In his first American film, Vittorio Gassman plays a stateless stowaway who's caught before his ship sails into New York harbor. Detained by immigration authorities, who won't believe his story that he qualifies for special consideration for aiding the Allies during the war, he's due to be returned to Trieste and certain death. But he jumps from the deck onto the docks, smashing his ribs, and starts stumbling around the city looking for the G.I. who can vouch for him (Jerry Paris). All Gassman knows is Paris' first name, and that he plays clarinet somewhere near Times Square (when we catch up with Paris, he's auditioning for Jack Teagarden's band).

During his nocturnal search, he runs into Gloria Grahame, who's very down on her luck. A sharp little minx who used to affix the tips to shoelaces for a living, now she steals coats from Automats (it's one of her more captivating performances). Grahame's at first wary of Gassman but quickly won over – his tale of woe makes her troubles look paltry, and he's the first guy to treat her decently. So she lets him hide out in her garret room (his escape makes the front pages) and helps him search for his old pal.

There's a beat-the-clock element that keeps the story moving: Gassman doesn't know that Paris has seen the tabloids and will vouch for him – or that his options will expire at dawn. And Shane stews the path with obstacles as well as with good Samaritans (Robin Raymond as a stripper with a heart of gold – another `Hunkie' – touchingly among them).

As the sky lightens, the desperate Gassman reaches the place he thinks will be his salvation: The forbidding `glass wall' of Wallace K. Harrison's just-completed United Nations Headquarters. But the building's empty of all but janitors, and Gassman still doesn't know that he's still safe....

The Glass Wall's a modest movie that overcomes the handicaps of its dated and idealistic `message' to succeed as a well told and acted human interest story. But it triumphs in its presentation of mid-20th-century Manhattan, as vividly raffish as in any movie of its period.

I'm no authority on the film noir genre, but Glass Wall had enough of the elements as I understand them -- gritty, urban streets; smoky, downstairs jazz rooms; beaten-down characters with nothing to lose; an urban milieu that suggests a struggle for existence; and the overbearing presence of authority -- to be a very satisfying film for me. The plot is simple, has elements of suspense, and is a bit contrived at times, particularly near the end, but I found it easily sustained my interest throughout the film. In a nutshell, a Hungarian refugee, Peter Kaban, who has stowed away on a ship docked in New York's port, is denied entry, and thus escapes into the streets of NYC where he must find the man (now a club musician) whose life as a soldier he saved in Europe during the war, and he must find him before the immigration authorities, supplemented by the police, find him, and before 7:00 AM the next day when the ship leaves port and his legal status becomes such that he would then never receive legal permission for entry into the U.S. New York's gritty survivors either aid him or exploit him, and nobody's life looks easy.

Much of the film, particularly the street scenes, were said to be filmed with hidden cameras, and that touch gives an active, life-like realism to Glass Wall. The city looks so vibrant and active at night with the various types of humanity jostling each other for a good time, companionship, or just simple survival, economic or otherwise. Vittorio Gassman plays the Kaban role, and perhaps he looks too delicately good-looking to suggest the utter determination of his character as he roams the streets of New York, while severely injured and harassed by almost everyone, to prevent deportation back to Hungary; but for sure,a handsome face on a character hardened by concentration camp experiences can mask an iron will. You have to root for Peter Kaban because despite the horrendous experiences of his brief life, his personality retains a decency and kindness that eventually wins over his initial, also desperate, female accomplice and also helps with his other female helper. Eight points for making Times Square look again to be a social magnet on what has to be a bustling Saturday night!

The movie came as a rather pleasant surprise. I wasn't expecting much, not having heard of it among Grahame's usual list of noirs. Nonetheless, it's imaginatively directed and generally suspenseful, despite a one-note plot. Refugee Kaban (Gassman) arrives in New York as a stowaway, but will be deported if he doesn't track down a musician friend. So he searches the dives along Times Square looking for the guy he last saw in Europe. While he's tracking his friend, however, the cops are tracking him. There's also a number of sub-plots concerning people he meets on the way, who sort of drift in and out.

There's atmosphere a-plenty as director Shane takes the camera crew along Times Square's night beat, which amounts to a dazzling b&w light show. At the same time, Gassman's gaunt frame and few words add to the carnival of characters. Grahame has a sympathetic role, for a change, which may be why the film remains obscure. Here, she's mostly a tag- along with Gassman and then with the cops. But I really like the unknown Robin Raymond as the personality-plus stripper who lights up the screen in a brief role.

At first, I thought "the glass wall" referred to Kaban's inability to enter the country as a stowaway. But then, the many imposing shots of the glass slab of the UN building changed my reference. Nonetheless, it looks like a number of scenes were actually filmed in the UN, lending the story even more visual appeal. All in all, the movie's a pretty good dramatic travelogue of downtown NYC, slim on plot and dialog but fat on inventive visuals. It's also reminiscent of a time when Europe's post-war DP's (displaced persons) were much in the news.

"Playhouse 90"-style drama of Vittorio Gassman trying to enter our country after World War II. He meets Gloria Grahame as she is stealing a coat (!) and finds her shabby room gloriously comfortable. I found it all quite entertaining: great music (jazz), cinematography, grubby characters who are nice to look at. The immigration theme is well-done but with a few annoyingly goofy plot turns.

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.