Recensioni degli utenti

I have great respect for the early movie comedians like Keaton, Chaplin, Laurel and others who created a character and developed situations and gags that fit the character's personality. They all had great autonomy within their own smaller companies, but found free reign disappear when they moved to the majors. "Sidewalks" is an MGM comedy with Buster Keaton; it's not a Buster Keaton comedy. It isn't bad, but other, even lesser comedians could have done as well because the "Buster" character doesn't appear here. Although some of the dialog is good and Keaton delivers it well, there's too much; he has an inner city gym for physical gags, but there's too little. The big studios never understood that comedians like Keaton, and later Laurel and Hardy, were their own writers, directors, and gag men. "Sidewalks" has much to recommend it, including some good support, but if you're looking for "Buster", or even "Elmer", look elsewhere.

This is another sad example of what happened to the outstanding Buster Keaton when he became controlled by a supposedly "major" studio, but one that had next to no idea of how to make a Buster Keaton movie.

With all the money and facilities available, this movie is not one-one-hundredth the quality of, for example, "The General." Buster Keaton, though, still showed some of the athleticism that make his good movies so good, and co-star Anita Page showed that she is watchable even in horrible movies.

For Keaton, it's a different kind of script, too, in that Buster is a rich guy and has money to try to do good.

Actually, most of the players do pretty well with what they have to work with, and it's a lot better than, for example, "Free and Easy," but "Sidewalks" is probably a title nobody will want to see more than once ... or maybe, since it is Keaton, more than once a year.

This is added after a viewing on TCM, 7 January 2015: Despite my dismal outlook in the previous review, this time around I liked it a lot more.

Partly I liked it more because I paid more attention to Anita Page, who had, I think, a role quite different for her. And she scored.

In previous roles -- that I have seen -- she was just a very pretty girl with no particular strength. Here she was strong as an over-protective sister "and mother and father."

Cliff Edwards was a particular joy. Usually just a with or at best second fiddle, here he showed he too could be a strong character, and his pairing with the acrobatic Keaton was perfect.

Yes, the big studio did not understand what was funny and did not know how to present Keaton.

But my second viewing, contrary to my earlier comment, made me like this a lot more and I raised my rating to seven. And I think everyone ought to see it. At least twice.

Keaton always referred to this film as a horror. No, it's not "The General" or "Our Hospitality". As in "Doughboys", another sound film with bad reputation which turns out to be very, very funny, Buster is paired with Cliff "Jiminy Cricket" Edwards. The chemistry between them is much better than the later pairing of Keaton with Jimmy Durante. The film is co-directed by Jules White, the driving force behind the Columbia short comedies from 1934 through 1958. We even see Keaton performing a routine done only a few years later by Curly Howard in "Disorder in the Court". Though the routine is more suited to Curly's comedy style, Keaton is very funny in this sequence. White was a director who believed that if something wasn't funny, at least make it fast and make it violent. White's reliance on comic violence is at odds with Keaton's art and is even more apparent in the comedy shorts Keaton made at Columbia in the late '30s and '40s. Interestingly, this film introduces a group of kids referred to as "East Side Kids". Did Sam Katzman get his inspiration here? One will never know.

SIDEWALKS OF NEW YORK (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1931), a Buster Keaton production directed by Jules White and Zion Meyers, offers comedian Buster Keaton a different type of comedy, that involving social issues. A sort of forerunner to what later developed into "The East Side Kids" comedy-drama series over at Monogram (1940-45) that featured the notable cast of Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall and Gabriel Dell, all of whom originated as "The Dead End Kids" based on their characterizations from the 1935 Broadway drama and 1937 film based adaptation, DEAD END. SIDEWALKS doesn't focus completely on the youths by letting Keaton take second precedence, but on Keaton's character as one who offers his assistance in helping boys of the slums (labeled as "The East Side Kids" from a newspaper clipping) by steering them on the right direction of life, with humorous results. Reportedly labeled, even by Keaton himself, as his "worst movie," SIDEWALKS, according to sources, proved to be his most successful MGM comedy to date, something that even Keaton couldn't understand.

Opening from the skyline view of New York City with an off-screen vocalist singing "East Side, West Side," before camera sets precedence on the lower east side of Manhattan, the pattern is immediately set with the introduction with a group of kids, led by Clipper Kelly (Norman Phillips Jr.), playing baseball on the street. Poggle (Cliff Edwards), personal secretary to millionaire landlord, Homer Van Dine Harmon (Buster Keaton), arrives by limousine into the tenement district to collect rent money from the tenants, resulting to a riot. Returning to Homer's mansion with injuries and minus the money, Harmon decides to do the job himself, meeting with the same results. After Homer gets punched by a tough blonde named Margie (Anita Page) for grabbing hold of her brother, Clipper, trying to get away, he immediately falls in love with her (Homer: "do you believe in love at first site?"). Instead of pressing charges on the urchins in the courtroom, Homer, for the sake of Margie, and with Poggle's assistance, helps the tough youths by providing them the Harmony Hall Boys Club. Butch (Frank Rowan), a neighborhood mobster wanting to steer the boys to his level of crime, intends on having Harmon fail in his purpose by using Clipper in a series of robberies dressed as "The Blonde Bandit."

Definitely a far cry from Keaton's usual flare of creative comedy from the silent era, the is MGM's attempt in trying something more different than originality. Keaton is still the "stoneface," but under MGM regime, continues on being a prat-falling, lovesick bumbler. Unlike his previous MGM assignments, Keaton isn't called "Elmer," nor is he under the direction of Edward Sedgwick. Rather than having one director, SIDEWALKS has two. In some ways, it helps to a degree, succeeding more in areas of inserted comedy than plot. A pity the emphases wasn't on both that would have helped considerably. Regardless of its poor reputation and little known overview in Keaton's filmography, there's still some funny material worth noting: The courtroom scene with Homer on the witness stand with lines and situations repeated to perfection in the Three Stooges comedy short, DISORDER IN THE COURT (Columbia, 1936); a fixed wrestling match between Homer and "One-Round" Mulvaney (Syd Saylor) at the athletic club; Homer's proposal to Margie with the use of a phonograph record; and Homer's preparation of roast duck dinner with Margie and Clipper. The Harmon stage presentation of "The Duke and the Dancer" subtitled "Bad Habits Don't Pay" with Keaton in drag doesn't come off as well as it should, and neither does the final minutes resembling that of an "Our Gang" comedy for Hal Roach Studios come off with any hilarity.

The casting of Anita Page (Keaton's co-star in 1930s FREE AND EASY) as the tough talking slum girl isn't very convincing, though Norman Phillips Jr. as her troublesome teenage brother is as acceptable as Frank Rowan's silent era stereotypical gangster role. One of the major faults in SIDEWALKS is its poor editing, more noticeable where Margie disappears from view after leaving Harmon. Scenes where players get struck lightly on the jaw and immediately lying unconscious on the ground is something more of a head slapping/eye-rolling response from disbelief.

As with the MGM/Keaton comedies, SIDEWALKS OF NEW YORK is an odd mix of comedy/drama, yet it somehow manages to become better than the others produced during that time. Rarely shown on broadcast television, this, along with DOUGHBOYS (1930) did turn up as recently as 1978 on a late night showing from WKBS TV, Channel 48, in Philadelphia. Distributed to home video in 1993, SIDEWALKS can be seen occasionally on Turner Classic Movies. (**)

Maybe this isn't the worst movie Buster Keaton ever appeared in, but in my opinion it sure felt like a long, long way to spend 74 minutes, and I regret to say that the 'The End' title came as something of a relief. Buster was a truly great comedian, but watching this film is no way to appreciate his talent, especially if you've never seen his best work from the silent days. Viewers unfamiliar with the details of his career should know right off that Keaton made this movie (and his other early talkies) during an unhappy stint at MGM, where he was denied creative control of his material and forced to take ill-fitting assignments. Sidewalks of New York is a prime example from a generally dismal series. Recently I was sorry to find a VHS copy of the film on the shelf with other videos at a local library, and to make matters worse they didn't appear to have any of Keaton's other, better movies, just this one. Wherever he is, Buster is grimacing.

What's wrong with it? Well, where to start? The dialog is generally labored and witless, but feels even worse because this is an early talkie with no musical score whatsoever, so the actors exchange their clunky jokes accompanied only by the low hiss of the soundtrack. Next problem, the casting is off. Buster has been assigned the role of Homer Van Dine Harmon, a dim-witted product of Old Money. This sort of part suited him in silent movies due to his elegant appearance, but it feels all wrong in a talkie because, let's face it, the man didn't speak in the cultivated tones of a moneyed person sent to the finest schools. (I'm trying to phrase this delicately.) Buster Keaton was a brilliant comic artist but he was not well educated, at least not in the conventional sense. He grew up backstage and learned all about show business, not subjects they teach at Harvard. His voice was harsh and his grammar was poor, and he tended to impose his own phrasing on the dialog he was given, so he'd say things like "That don't feel good." He doesn't sound like a child of privilege, and when he's given such bogus things to say as "You strike me as a trifle unbalanced," as in this film, he sounds even less so. Furthermore, Homer's dimness lacks the distinctive eccentricity Buster displayed in his best silent comedies: he's merely stupid. Worse still, MGM has placed Buster's annoyingly dim-witted millionaire in the middle of a sentimentalized Lower East Side slum, full of picturesque Little Tough Guys with nicknames like Baloney. The real-world euphemism for "Baloney" sums up this script succinctly.

The plot hinges on Homer's attempts to clean up the slum and provide the kids with wholesome activities; his primary motivation is to impress Margie (Anita Page), the older sister of one of the boys. The Hollywood ghetto feels phony, and the script's version of snappy dialog is painful at times, but even so this premise might have offered the potential for decent visual comedy if those genuinely dim-witted millionaires who ran MGM had allowed their star to develop some of his characteristic set-pieces. But no, this project has the look of something cranked out in a hurry, and the exquisitely funny routines we remember from Keaton's silent features have been reduced to mercilessly repetitive bits in which Buster gets punched, trips, flails, drops things, clunks his head, breaks more stuff, and falls over again.

Even Keaton's weakest comedies usually have a scene or two worth seeing. (Perhaps the only exception is the abysmal feature he made in Mexico in the mid-1940s: all prints of that one should be seized with fireplace tongs and tossed into a raging furnace.) Sidewalks of New York provides a moment or two, but the pickings are pretty slim. There's a modestly funny sequence in which Buster attempts to carve a roast duck, and another in which he and Cliff Edwards mess up an amateur stage performance, but any comedian worthy of the name could have performed these scenes. Keaton's MGM bosses just couldn't figure out what made him unique, or else they just didn't care. On balance, there's no compelling reason to see this movie, and I'd suggest that the 74 minutes it takes to view it could be more profitably and enjoyably spent watching any of Buster's silent features.

Bumbling wealthy landlord Mr. Harmon (Buster Keaton) is surprised to find his property fall into chaos caused by rowdy kids. Margie Kelly comes to aid of her little brother and knocks Harmon down. It's love at first sight for him. He decides to help the kids to win her over. It's tougher than he imagined with Margie's brother Clipper working with criminal Butch.

Silent super star Buster Keaton had mixed results during the sound era. This film is one of his successes. It does allow Buster to do his physical comedy. It's relatively funny although the seriousness of Clipper's dilemma is not that fun. Buster is still physically impressive. I do miss a large constructed stunt. While this is not at the level of his silent classics, this does allow Buster to play his character and be the butt of the joke. The romance is nice. It's not high class but Buster does his work well.

The directors of this film, Jules White and Zion Myers, were the directors of the successful Dogville Comedies at MGM. They were rewarded by being given a feature film to direct, that film being Buster Keaton in Sidewalks of New York. I'm sure Keaton was insulted being considered one step above canine stars at MGM, by reading his biography I know he was angry at the autocratic ways of Jules White who was used to directing four-footed stars and thus went about telling Buster how to be Buster. On top of that, their ideas of comedy just did not mesh. Jules White liked mayhem as comedy. This served him well at Columbia with the Three Stooges, but not here with Buster.

The story revolves around wealthy Homer Van Dine Harmon (Keaton) who has sent his assistant (Cliff Edwards) out to collect the rent at the tenements he owns. Edwards is sent home without the rent money and shoe prints on his face. Homer returns to the East Side with Edwards in tow to get the rents himself and winds up in the middle of a neighborhood fight between the kids on the street. At the same time he meets the older sister of one of the tougher kids, Margie (Anita Page), and falls in love at first sight. Margie's brother Clipper is on the verge of getting into serious trouble with the law by hanging around with hoodlum Butch. Homer decides - partly out of real concern for the kids, partly out of pining for Margie - to build a gym where the kids can play safely and get off of the streets and away from bad influences like Butch. Needless to say Butch is unhappy about this development and decides to get rid of the meddlesome Homer when he instructs Clipper to turn what is supposed to be a harmless play into an opportunity for a fatal accident. Will Clipper go through with it? Will Homer get the girl? Watch and find out.

There is one part of this film that is genuinely funny and inspired, and that is when the shy Homer is trying to figure out how to propose to Margie. He follows Cliff Edwards into a record store and Edwards has Homer use the titles of popular songs as the material for his proposal and record the whole thing. This seems to be working out quite well until Homer hits the last song title Cliff holds up, at which time he makes a comment that doesn't quite fit the rest of the recording and is certainly no way to conclude a proposal. This gag was good enough that Buster refurbished it years later when he was a gag writer on "Neptune's Daughter" and he used it in a scene between Red Skelton and Betty Garrett.

This film was a real disappointment to me overall. The gags largely consist of chases, food fights, and prolonged routines that have no sense of timing and just get tiresome. If not for the fact that this film is part of Buster Keaton's filmography I'd say avoid it entirely and find something more worthwhile to do with 74 minutes of your life. Since it is Keaton, it's probably worth one viewing just to say you've seen it.

In "Sidewalks Of New York", Buster Keaton proves that he is equally adept at pratfalls and verbal gags, sometimes combining the two at the same time. The film has some very funny moments: the courtroom sequence, the duck, the voice recording, the door barricade. It also has parts that don't work, like the wrestling / boxing bouts; coincidentally, Keaton's main "rival" Charlie Chaplin exploited the comic possibilities of the sports in a better, and shorter, fashion in his "City Lights", the very same year. There is also a dark undercurrent to the film, especially in the scenes with a young boy bullied into a life of crime and even murder! The big action climax is quite unusual. Anita Page has a spicier role here than in Keaton's "Free And Easy". **1/2 out of 4.

One of the hardest things about watching the talkies MGM stuck Buster Keaton in isn't necessarily how awful they are (although Free and Easy (1930) IS awful), but how underwhelming they are. Gone are Keaton's outrageous stunts and understated sense of humor. In their place are set-bound scripts with uninspired slapstick and half-wit jokes. This precisely defines Sidewalks of New York (1932), perhaps the most boring of all the Keaton MGM films.

Keaton, Cliff Edwards, and Anita Page are all wasted on insipid material. I feel especially bad for Page, who's stuck screaming half the time. Buster has little to do other than look foolish in the most unfunny ways possible, though at least his character isn't nearly as idiotic as he was in Free and Easy. The only decent bit he got was a scene where he tries and fails to carve a roasted duck. Oh well, at least Durante isn't running about the set screeching, else this would be downright painful.

MGM tried to box Keaton in to their formulaic scripts of the day, but Keaton was able to break out and shine. Although the big studios didn't know what to do with Keaton, this film was funny and well above average for the day. Instead of it leading to depression and alcohol, better counsel would have been to adapt even better to the talkies and keep improving. This was an impressive movie, despite all the critics who only saw Keaton as a silent star. The critics are/were wrong. Keaton COULD adapt, although he lived through a barrage of naysayers, who are still around today singing praises of his silent pictures, which no one under 90 will watch. Try to get anyone under 50 to watch black and white -- you'll have a hard time with it. Keaton had great talent and should never have listened to the critics who praised only his silents. His work on this film proved he could still entertain and be funny.

Oddly enough, I found the most interesting part of this film to be Norman Phillips, Jr, the 14-year-old who plays the boy being used as a pawn by criminals pretty well. That's pretty damning, since it's got Buster Keaton and Anita Page in it. And of course, Keaton is the only real reason anyone would ever watch it, or at least should watch it. He plays an awkward, rich slumlord, which doesn't fit for several reasons, and while there are a couple of exceptions, doesn't get a chance to truly demonstrate his comedy or his humanity. The humor is too often geared towards mayhem, without enough subtlety, and the script is weak. The film has no focus, shifting from slapstick to romance to gangster to an old episode of The Little Rascals, and does none of them well. It's just not very appealing aesthetically, despite how hard we root for Keaton, or how much we admire his athleticism. If Keaton had directed and not been chafing under the yoke of Jules White, it certainly would have been tighter and funnier. It's stunning to me that this was Keaton's most commercially successful film, a fact that no doubt helped convince MGM that they knew best, when they didn't. Talk about sacrificing art for short-term profit.

I just finished watching "Sidewalks of New York" (1931) with Buster Keaton as the somewhat dim-witted but rich slumlord Homer Van Dine Harmon. Homer decides to help the youth of his street by building a youth recreational gym. They don't appreciate it & do a job on it by tearing it apart.

Anita Page plays Margie Kelly the woman whom Homer adores but doesn't think he has a prayer of a chance in gaining her interest. His buddy Poggle (Cliff Edwards...voice of Jiminy Cricket fame) encourages him to try to get to know her & ask her to marry him.

Norman Phillips as Clipper Kelly (Margie's brother) is one of a few of the troubled youth Homer wants to help.

And we have Frank Rowan who plays the nasty Butch the Bad Guy. Butch will do all he can to stop Homer from helping the kids because that group is where he collects his new gang members.

What's going to happen? Will Butch's plan to kill Homer come to fruition? Or will the kids decide Homer is A-OK & come to his rescue? I hope you get to watch this comedy.

Keaton wasn't fond of this movie but I found it to be fun!

For all the success that much of the film industry enjoyed in the silent era, there were no few instances of fortunes changing upon the advent of the talkie. Even screen legend Buster Keaton diminished in the sound era, to say nothing of his stated regret of signing with MGM. One way or another, I think it's only reasonable to sit for 'Sidewalks of New York' with a measure of trepidation; how might it hold up decades later? The good news is that this is enjoyable, and it certainly earns laughs at no few points. The bad news is that it also bears major flaws that severely weigh it down, and it's direly uneven. I don't outright dislike this, but I also don't think the movie comes anywhere near to the likes of 'Go west,' 'The navigator,' or 'The General,' even strictly in terms of the comedy - and frankly, that's the least of the title's problems.

Unlike Keaton's prior works, or the best of other comedic icons, there's a considerable mean streak in the writing here as characters are extra curt and even cruel to one another. With that in mind, I'm not so impressed with the direction of Zion Myers and Jules White, for it seems heavy-handed at points, turning that mean streak into shrill, grating, moody outbursts that feel ill-fitting for a Keaton feature. On that note, I guess overall the child actors are just fine, including prominent Norman Phillips Jr., but under Myers and White's direction they frequently do not fare so well; the result rather demonstrates the conventional wisdom attributed to W. C. Fields to "never work with children or animals." Weirdly, in other instances the direction just comes across as weak and middling, dampening the humor. Myers and White are technically capable, but the tone simply feels wrong.

Equally troubling if not more so, the plot is built more for serious crime drama than for a cheeky romp, exemplified in a scene to come just after the halfway mark and broadly defining much of the latter half. In fact, the picture quite comes off as an inelegant smash-up of (a) a dramatic script of risky juvenile delinquency, and mixing with criminal elements, with (b) tidbits of classic Keaton ballyhoo - and sadly, nothing about the combination is really strong enough to earn substantial favor. To that end, elsewhere some bits seem to strain terribly to achieve the desired effect, even if they're setting up something better to come later. 'Sidewalks of New York' could have been a crime drama, or could it have been a comedic Keaton vehicle, but even if we suppose that this was an attempt at something a little different for the star, the effort to blend the two halves didn't fully pan out. No matter how good it may be at large, this 1931 film does not count among Keaton's top credits.

It's not that the sum total is specifically bad, but the weave here of comedy and drama is all too tenuous, with each part dragging down the other. Such critiques are regrettable, for at its best there really is a lot to like in these short seventy-four minutes. Though not every odd and end lands as intended, we are nevertheless greeted with delightful gags, situational humor, physical comedy, sharp dialogue, and general silliness and shenanigans. Keaton is as reliable as ever as an actor, especially when it comes to sacrificing his body for comedy, and co-stars Anita Page and Cliff Edwards ably keep up. There are aspects of the writing that are primed for delicious frivolity or engrossing drama, however sorrily flat they are when swirled together, and all those behind the scenes turned in excellent work. From the stunts and effects, to sets and costume design, to Leonard Smith's cinematography, more than not the movie is well made, even if it sometimes comes across that those involved were still working out the kinks of the new sound paradigm.

It's so unfortunate, then, that the end product turned out the way it did. I think various folks share the responsibility here, between the directors, the writers, and producer Lawrence Weingarten - not for lack of trying, but they took a swing and missed. For all that this does well, it plainly struggles in the ways that matter most, and the lasting entertainment value is significantly reduced. To one degree or another 'Sidewalks of New York' remains worth checking out, but if you're looking for a joyful blast of comedy like Keaton was known for, it's best recommended that you stick with his silent masterpieces, and if you're looking for a crime flick, you have plenty of other options. Do watch if you have the opportunity, but don't go out of your way for it, and save it as something light and more passively amusing.

Keaton is brilliant in this movie! It's a warming soft atmosphere he gives off. He will do anything to make the women he loves, love him back, even help a trouble boy.

Comedic and thoughtful!

A rich man takes his time and money to the less fortunate streets and allows the community to come together.

Keaton played a very well behaved gentleman and even funnier as a stage actress.

The gravity of obvious acting on the stage was hilarious and more funny than any comedy you'll see on the screens today.

Why the hate? I don't know! This is a gem.

His voice is soft for one of his talkies and it's brilliantly displayed for his character he plays in this one so I will allow this a win for Keaton!

This isn't just a story with funny tricks and gags, it's an actual story that has a beginning a middle and end.

Don't compare this with todays comedy~ remember that these films were before copycat movies were made so in originality wise, this is original comedy.

Sidewalks of New York (1931)

** (out of 4)

Buster Keaton plays a soft slum owner who falls for a woman (Anita Page) living in his building and plans on impressing her by fixing up the neighborhood and trying to make her bad brother a good kid. Keaton hated this film so much because MGM wouldn't let him have any artistic control and to his shock it became his most popular film, which was a bad thing since that told the studio they could do whatever they wanted with him. This was certainly a turning point in Keaton's career and while it's not as bad as its reputation it's certainly not the classics we're use to seeing the legend appear in. The biggest problem with the film is that it tries to be too many things at once and it doesn't do any of them very well. One moment it wants to be a comedy then it wants to be a drama and then we get more touches of a romantic comedy. The screenplay is all over the map and I found it to be too light for a drama and too mean to work as a comedy. There's a pretty ugly scene towards the end of the film when a wise guy tries to force the kid brother to kill Keaton and this stuff just doesn't work. The abuse shown at the kid who is forced to do some pretty bad things really comes off like abuse and it's hard to watch at times. Even though Keaton's hated doing this film he still manages to turn in a decent performance. Sure, this isn't the golden era of his career but he does have a few good lines and gets to show off some of his physical abilities but not enough. Page also comes off very good even though her role isn't written too well. The two actually have some nice chemistry together and make the film a lot better than it has the right to be.