The Glass Wall

"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.

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.

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.

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!