Street Scene

Street Scene (1931)

Runtime: 78 minutes

Directed by: King Vidor

Starring: Sylvia Sidney, William Collier, Jr., Estelle Taylor, Beulah Bondi, David Landau

From: United Artists

Yes, this was watched last night because the plot revolves around a heat wave. It’s a movie I’ve known of for a long while now but the hot climate that has seemingly enveloped the entire Northern Hemisphere as of late made it seem logical (not to mention topical) to give it a spin. The setting of this movie-in fact, all but a small scene are set on a giant sound stage-is a city block in New York City which is a melting pot filled with many different ethnicities & cultures. Of course, the non-white faces you see are only shown briefly, but that is to be expected in Hollywood. The story is based on a Pulitzer Prize winning play and the stage origins are obvious, although that was fine with me in this case as all the dialogue was riveting to me.

The first 20 minutes introduces most of the characters as they talk amongst each other either on the front step of an apartment building or from the windows and various topics are talked about besides the weather. This presents all their attitudes as such things as an impending birth, bratty children, and an adulterous affair are discussed. Oh, and there’s also plenty of prejudice and well, there is talk of people “hating foreigners” but of course they mean “hating the wrong kind of foreigners”… why does that sound familiar… yep, this along with the way it’s shot made this feel rather modern. Vidor does try rather hard at times to move the camera around to mask the sound stage aesthetic. Anyhow, Sylvia Sidney then shows up and you realize the movie focuses on her. Besides her parents being a part of that affair, a young Jewish man is interested in her…

A shocking moment happened about a half hour in, then it was topped by something even more shocking; it was a word uttered that utterly floored me as appearing in something pre MPAA ratings board. The Jewish characters do have disparaging remarks made about them… from someone expressing shock at Hebrew being read on the page to them being called “your kind.” Then later, the building’s bully pushes around the aforementioned young Jewish man and calls him a… horrible ethnic slur I’ll never repeat here, except that it is THAT one. If that didn’t knock me on my ass, about 10 minutes later Sidney is talking to an Italian man with a rather exaggerated accent and he repeats that slur in reference to the same young man, not in anger but instead in a casual manner as if it’s a word he uses often and he thinks it is OK to say out loud. Giving its usage in the first scene, even at the time it had to be a vile insult. Yet the Jewish characters were portrayed relatively well compared to everyone else (although they also had their prejudices) so the movie should not be judged as offensive against that religion.

Eventually, murder happens and once it does, the rest of the movie is the ramifications of that death or deaths. All of it was fascinating seeing all the gossiping characters reveal various faults and errors in judgment just from their dialogue and how they interact w/ each other. In terms of performances, Sidney was the best, although Beulah Bondi also stood out as the most prejudicial person on the block. It was a memorable 78 minutes for sure; Street Scene was my first sound King Vidor film and I’ll be down for watching more of those if they also felt as fresh as this did.