NFR Project: 'In the Street' (1948)

 

NFR Project: “In the Street”

Pho: Helen Levitt, Janice Loeb, James Agee

Ed: Helen Levitt

Premiere: 1948/1952

14/18 min.

Slice of life.

That’s the best way to describe this short film. Taken in Spanish Harlem on the island of Manhattan, it’s the work of three filmmakers who wanted to preserve the look and feel of everyday life in the New York City of their day.

The trio hit the streets, focusing on children at play, passersby, older women maintaining storefronts. The movie is black-and-white and silent; there is no narration to contextualize what we are seeing, no explanation, just plain witnessing.

This agenda-less exercise is of interest to the quiet observer, the unassuming audience member.

The NFR is one writer’s attempt to review all the films listed in the National Film Registry in chronological order. Next time: Letter from an Unknown Woman.

NFR Project: 'Force of Evil' (1948)

 

NFR Project: “Force of Evil”

Dir: Abraham Polonsky

Scr: Abraham Polonsky, Ira Wolfert

Pho: George Barnes

Ed: Art Seid

Premiere: Dec. 25, 1947

76 min.

It turns out the film noir could bear the weight of social commentary. Abraham Polonsky (1910-1999) wrote the screenplay for Body and Soul (1947), a popular prize-fighting picture starring John Garfield. He was then given the chance to direct as well as write. The result was Force of Evil, a thinly disguised critique of capitalism that later got its director and star in hot water with the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC).

The story is simple: Garfield plays a crooked lawyer, Joe Morse, who protects a crime combine that runs the numbers racket in New York City. One of the smaller “banks” that run the numbers is owned by his older brother Leo (Thomas Gomez in his greatest role).

Joe and his gangster boss Tucker (Roy Roberts) come up with a scheme to bankrupt the smaller betting parlors so that everyone has to do their gambling through them. This ruthless corporate consolidation means that all the little players squeezed out, including Leo. Joe tries to get Leo to take a position in Tucker’s organization, but Leo refuses.

The scheme works, and soon the police and a rival gang come down hard on Leo. Meanwhile, it becomes apparent that Joe is being surveilled by the government. Joe packs up some cash and a gun and prepares to leave town. Meanwhile, Leo is tricked into meeting an informant at a restaurant, where a rival gang swoops in and kidnaps him, killing his bookkeeper at the same time.

Joe finds out, and rushes to Tucker’s, where he finds Tucker making a deal with the gangster that kidnapped Leo. The rival gangster Ficco reveals that Leo has been murdered and dumped under the George Washington Bridge. Joe lifts the receiver on a tapped phone, allowing the law to hear Ficco confess that his men killed Leo and the bookkeeper. A gun battle breaks out; Tucker and Ficco are killed. Joe leaves and goes to find his brother’s body, then turns himself in to the police.

There is a slight romantic plot between Joe and a young secretary, Doris, but the film is concerned with the mechanics of what is basically a hostile corporate takeover. Crooks will fix the numbers game to get their way; nothing matters but the expansion and domination of the primary criminal enterprise in the city.

Garfield is stellar as Joe, as the film tracks his disillusionment to the bitter end. Joe’s world is nasty, dark, and bristling with hidden weapons that come into play at the end of the film. Crooks are merely shadows of the ruthlessness and disregard for human feeling of the stock market. Money and the system of its distribution inherently corrupt anyone involved with it.

There is a lot of location shooting in New York; Joe’s office is close to Wall Street and the parallels between legitimate banks and numbers banks is made clear. The gangsters are after the cash flow and nothing human is factored into their machinations. Joe gets wise to himself – but too late to save his brother.

In 1951, Polonsky and Garfield were summoned before HUAC but refused to “name names” of American Communists; both were blacklisted. Garfield died of a heart attack at the age f 39 in 1952. Polonsky wrote under pseudonyms until 1959. Never again would Hollywood let someone with anti-capitalist sentiments get behind a movie camera.

The NFR is one writer’s attempt to review all the films listed in the National Film Registry in chronological order. Next time: In the Street.

NFR Project: 'Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein' (1948)

 

NFR Project: “Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein”

Dir: Charles Barton

Scr: Robert Lees, Frederic I. Rinaldo, John Grant

Pho: Charles Van Enge

Ed: Frank Gross

Premiere: June 1948

82 min.

It’s not their best film, but it’s their most memorable. It contains none of the wordplay routines for which they were famous. The duo was hostile to the whole concept of the film. They had just completed their 17^th film in six years; the country was seemingly tired of them.

But this film made an enormous amount of money for Universal; supposedly it “saved” the studio. The combination of horror and comedy proved to be a potent concoction. People went nuts about Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein.

Bud Abbott and Lou Costello were the best-known comedy duo between the reigns of Laurel and Hardy and Martin and Lewis. Lou was the roly-poly, mischievous little comedian; Bud was the tall, thin straight man. They had impeccable timing together, and rose to fame in 1938, when they did their famous “Who’s on First?” routine on the radio. Soon they had their own radio show, and a lucrative film contract.

By 1948, their humor was wearing thin. Their radio show was canceled and it looked like they were going to stop making movies. Then this film came along and revived their fortunes, leading to more movies, a TV show, and general renown.

In the film, Lou and Bud are Wilbur and Chick, two baggage clerks in Florida. A museum owner ships two crates through them – crates that contain Dracula (Bela Lugosi) and Frankenstein’s Monster (Glenn Strange). Larry Talbot, the Wolf Man (Lon Chaney Jr.) tries to persuade the duo that Dracula plans to control Frankenstein a take over the world, and that he must be stopped.

Chick is skeptical, but Wilbur is exposed to the monsters and reacts in humorous panic. “Ch-Ch-Ch-CHIIIIIIIICK!” he exclaims frequently. By the time Chick shows up, the monsters are gone. This continues throughout the film. Meanwhile, a sexy surgeon (Lenore Aubert) plans to take Wilbur’s brain and put it into the Monster to make him more docile. Wilbur, being a moron, has a perfectly susceptible brain.

What follows is an up-and-down story of chases and close calls. Chick and Larry set out to save Wilbur. The good guys go up against the bad guys and defeat them – Dracula, the Wolf Man, and Frankenstein are all destroyed. A final gag featuring the Invisible Man (voiced by Vincent Price) closes things out. It is rather sad to see the Universal monsters used as punch lines.

If you are an Abbott and Costello fan, this film’s for you. If not . . . this film will not change your mind about them. The duo would go on to create many more “Meets” films; Lou’s stammering cowardice and Bud’s cynical pragmatism would carry them through these increasingly poor films.

The NFR is one writer’s attempt to review all the films listed in the National Film Registry in chronological order. Next time: Force of Evil.