À l'ombre de Brooklyn

"Becka - always Becka - demure, distracting, bewildering."

Talk about a kitchen sink of a movie. The protagonist is a young man who has grown up not knowing the identity of his birth father, and loses his mother and stepfather in a boating accident on the East River. He makes his way into the city, where after being roughed up on the streets, is taken in by a Jewish family, whose daughter he develops an attraction towards. Due to his prowess with his fists, he starts out boxing, but his real aspirations are to be an architect and engineer. Naturally, he eventually meets and begin working for his birth father, a wealthy man who can help him, but only the older man knows of their true relationship.

There is quite a bit of melodrama built on top of that very Victorian premise, as if Allan Dwan was trying to eke as much action and emotion out of every scenario. Aside from a boxing match in the ring, there are five brawls interspersed throughout the film, and an attempted rape. There are two love triangles which form, as the pair we're rooting for gets pulled apart, and (of course) there are issues with their subsequent romances. There is also a perilous cave-in at a construction site, an ocean liner which sinks in the Atlantic after hitting an iceberg, and a police raid at a speakeasy, the latter two of which involve gunplay. This film wants to be many different genres (even tossing in some comedy too), and would have been better off simplifying.

It doesn't have a cast filled with big stars, but I liked it for that, as buff George O'Brien and cute Virginia Valli are wonderfully natural here, and had chemistry. The moments of the two of them bashfully flirting, like when she's up on that ladder revealing her legs, are nice, and I wish the film had developed more of them. I liked these little things more than all the big action moments - another was the humorous scene where his buddy acted like his bride-to-be. Well, maybe I should caveat that by saying that the chaos that ensued after the ocean liner hit the iceberg was gripping, and also fascinating in light of its recency to the Titanic sinking. Lastly, we also get some beautiful footage of the city of New York, which is a co-star in its own right. This one went all over the place, but it was worth checking out.

A poor boy's rise and the girl friend he almost loses when she sacrifices her love so he can mix with high society.

Basically a standard Hollywood production of the time, more Hollywood than New York despite some nice location shooting. A few scenes are of interest, especially shots of the New York waterfront from a boat, a collapse at a subway construction site, and scenes on a sinking ocean liner. Some may also be interested in the miniature work used for the sinking of the ocean liner and of a barge, but this was done better later.

Sprawling film starring George O'Brien and Virginia Valli in a story about New York City, directed by Allan Dwan. A lot of plot is packed into 90 minutes with O'Brien starting out as a barge boy who is taken in by a tailor (ha ha) and his family until he goes off to become a prize fighter. He becomes the protege of a wealthy city builder and becomes an engineer working on the city's subway. He eventually becomes engaged to the builder's "ward," but there is a "Titantic" sort of disaster that changes everyone's course.

Possibly too much plot and not enough character development, but the film is an eyeful and Dwan shows us some stunning shots of 1927 New York, especially in the opening sequences. O'Brien is quite good as the protagonist as is Valli as the Jewish slum girl who becomes a speakeasy singer. Also good are June Collyer as the ward, J. Farrell MacDonald as the boxing manager, Holmes Herbert as the builder, Frank Allworth as Flash, Dore Davidson as the old tailor.

Implausible to be sure but it's quite entertaining.

"East Side, West Side" (1927) is a superb actioner with George O'Brien, Virginia Valli, J. Farrell MacDonald, June Collyer, Holmes Herbert, and many others. You want action? You want a saga with lots of parts? You want romance? You want to see George O'Brien without a shirt? You want to see Virginia Valli's petticoat and above her ankles? You want to see the rich side and the poor side of NYC in 1927 in spades - I mean spades! - ? Well, this is your film! It has a little bit of everything, from a Titanic-like boat sinking with many passengers and the loss of a father, one whom the son doesn't know is his father...this, to the crossing of Lindberg from here to Paris...and the building of the subway in the city...and the building of skyscrapers in the city...and romance...and more romance...and boxing with a plus...and endless fights in speaks and streets...and...

O'Brien lives on a brick barge with his mother and his step-father. In the East River one dark night their barge is rammed and sunk and O'Brien's mother and step-father are drowned and he is barely able to make it to shore. He does make it, though, and ends up in the East Side at a Jewish tailor and clothing-dealer's (new and used) business and home. The daughter of the tailor is Virginia Valli. After O'Brien has survived a vicious fight with the Grogan gang, Valli takes him in and tells her father to get him some clothes while she goes to run a hot bath for the smelly newcomer...

This was about as much fun watching as can be had! Certainly one of O'Brien's best performances. Highly recommended! Interestingly enough, my DVD print had Russian sub-titles under the English intertitles. Obviously my source has some interesting sources! Print is the restored one and is truly wonderful. Crisp black and white. This Fox production was also very well directed by Allan Dwan.

I saw East Side, West Side as part of a festival at the Museum of Modern Art devoted to movies set on New York's waterfront. Extensive location shooting is certainly the main reason to see this film. From the opening shot of the harbor looking towards lower Manhattan, through scenes set in the streets of the Lower East Side and on the Brooklyn Bridge, this is one of the best chances you'll get to see New York in its 1920s glory. The plot is an everything-including-the-kitchen-sink melodrama: two shipwrecks, a subway tunnel cave-in, mysteries of parentage, the fate worse than death--it's all in there, but the movie zips along so briskly and is so fresh, robust and vigorous that it never bogs down, and you laugh with it, not at it.

George O'Brien (of Sunrise fame) is a fairly primitive actor, but he's a likable presence as well as an extraordinary physical specimen. In a way, the primitive quality is appropriate. Our hero was raised on a brick-carrying barge traveling New York harbor, where we first see him in the beautiful opening shots that look over his shoulder at the Oz-like skyline. When the barge sinks and he is washed ashore on the Lower East Side, he is almost a Tarzan figure, a naive stranger to civilization. He is found cowering in a basement and taken in by a kindly Jewish family. Their spunky daughter takes an immediate liking to him, and there is a very funny scene in which she shows him the bathroom, where her undergarments are hanging in plain view, and keeps popping in with one more thing to say as he's getting undressed. Pretty soon he's helping out in the family's second-hand clothing store ("He's not a customer, Pop, give him something that fits," the daughter says when they dress up their castaway) and she's climbing ladders and getting her legs in his face. This idyll is interrupted when he becomes the protégé of a wealthy Upper West Side architect, who just might be the father he never knew, and who also has an attractive young ward....

It's too bad East Side, West Side is so hard to find. In the pristine print I saw, with live music, I really felt transported back in time. I saw it paired with Raoul Walsh's Regeneration, which also captures the vibrant flavor of the Lower East Side with its crowded tenements, street brawls and bustling markets. While Regeneration focuses on criminals and stages the sinking of the General Slocum, East Side, West Side features the construction of skyscrapers and the subway system and presents the city at a prosperous, optimistic, expansive moment in its history.