The Bowery (1933 film)
| The Bowery | |
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 Theatrical release poster |
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| Directed by | Raoul Walsh |
| Produced by | 20th Century Pictures |
| Written by | Howard Estabrook James Gleason Michael L. Simmons (novel) Bessie Roth Solomon (novel) |
| Starring | Wallace Beery George Raft Jackie Cooper Fay Wray Pert Kelton |
| Music by | Alfred Newman |
| Cinematography | Barney McGill |
| Editing by | Allen McNeil |
| Distributed by | United Artists |
| Release date(s) | October 7, 1933 |
| Running time | 92 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
The Bowery is a 1933 historical film about the Lower East Side of Manhattan at the turn of the century. The movie was directed by Raoul Walsh and features Wallace Beery as saloon owner Chuck Connors, George Raft as Steve Brodie, the first man to jump off the Brooklyn Bridge and live, Jackie Cooper as a pugnacious child, Fay Wray (in the same year as King Kong) as the leading lady, and Pert Kelton (the first "Alice Kramden" on Jackie Gleason's The Honeymooners) as a bawdy dance hall singer.
The film is an absorbing presentation of the views and behaviors common at the time. The movie opens with a close-up of a saloon window featuring a sign saying "Nigger Joe's" in large letters (the name of an actual Bowery bar from the period). At one point, Cooper's character throws a rock through a Chinatown window, knocking over a kerosene lamp and causing a lethal fire that spreads through the block. When Beery's character berates him for carelessly killing so many innocent Chinese people, Cooper's character responds, "They was just Chinks," whereupon Beery immediately softens, saying "Awww..." while affectionately mussing the boy's hair.
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[edit] Plot
In the Gay Nineties, on New York's Bowery, saloon owner Chuck Connors (Beery), finds that his rival, Steve Brodie (Raft), has thrown a muskmelon at his window. The happy-go-lucky Brodie explains that he threw the melon on a dare. As Connors threatens to fight him, the two learn of a fire in neighboring Chinatown. Both men call upon their volunteer fire brigades, and wager $100 on which will be the first to throw water on the fire. Although Brodie is first to arrive, he finds Connor's young pal, Swipes McGurk (Cooper), sitting on a barrel placed over the fire hydrant preventing Brodie from using it first. Connors arrives and the rival fire fighters brawl as the fire reduces the building to a smoldering ruin. Brodie vows revenge on Connors, leading to a $500 bet that a fighter, whom Brodie calls "The Masked Marvel," can beat "Bloody Butch" a prizefighter managed by Conners. Conners accepts, and the "Marvel" knocks out Bloody Butch with one punch. After the fight, the "Marvel" is revealed to be John L. Sullivan (George Walsh).
Connors meets a homeless girl named Lucy Calhoun (Fay Wray) and takes her to his apartment, where he lives with Swipes, and lets her spend the night. In the morning, he is pleasantly surprised (and Swipes annoyed), to find that Lucy has cleaned up the place and cooked breakfast. Swipes later locks Lucy in a closet and, when Connors finds her, spanks him. Humiliated, Swipes packs and leaves. That night, Brodie invites Swipes to move in with him, which he does. Finding out about Lucy, Brodie attempts to seduce her, thinking that she is Connors' mistress. She bites his hand, drawing blood, and after learning her identity, he apologizes and asks if he can call on her. They soon fall in love, and Brodie reveals his ambition to run a saloon bigger than Connors'. When two brewers offer to back him if he can bring his name into prominence, Brodie decides to jump off the Brooklyn Bridge as a stunt. Connors bets his saloon against a free burial that Brodie won't survive. Scheming to avoid actually jumping, Brodie gets a life-sized dummy made up to look like him and arranges for Swipes to throw it off the bridge at the time of the jump. As a crowd of 100,000 gathers at the bridge, Swipes finds the dummy missing. Swipes observes, in dialogue that sounds eerily current to the modern ear, "They were hip to us so they copped it." Despite Swipes's pleas, and left without any other option, Brodie vows to make the jump anyway, so that no one can say he didn't take a dare. Meanwhile, temperance activist Carrie Nation and her band of women arrive at Connors' saloon to tear it down with axes and hatchets. When he sees Brodie lifted in a parade after making the jump, however, Connors encourages the acivists to destroy the saloon, which they do.
Brodie re-opens the refurbished saloon, and when war is declared against Spain, Connors enlists in an effort to get away from the Bowery, where he is no longer a big shot. When he returns to his apartment to pack, he finds that Swipes has returned, and learns that Brodie in fact did not jump from the bridge, and shows him the dummy. Connors demands Brodie give his saloon back. Brodie denies using the dummy, and the two have a long fight on a barge in the East River to settle their differences. After Connors returns victorious, he is arrested for assault and battery with intent to kill. Brodie, however, refuses to implicate him. As Brodie recovers, Connors visits his hospital only to begin another fight, but Swipes stops them and urges them to become friends. After they shake hands, Connors dares Brodie to join him in Cuba. At a parade for departing soldiers, Connors tells Lucy to kiss Brodie goodbye, and after she does, she also kisses Connors. The men lament not being able to say goodbye to Swipes, but they soon see, to their delight, that he is hiding in an artillery box on the supply wagon just ahead of them.
[edit] Cast
- Wallace Beery as Chuck Connors
- George Raft as Steve Brodie
- Jackie Cooper as Swipes McGurk
- Fay Wray as Lucy Calhoun
- Pert Kelton as Trixie Odbray
- Herman Bing as Max Herman
- Oscar Apfel as Ivan Rummel
- Ferdinand Munier as Honest Mike
- George Walsh as John L. Sullivan
- Lillian Harmer as Carrie A. Nation
This movie was also Lucille Ball's first film.
[edit] Production
The Bowery bears some resemblances to a concurrent movie She Done Him Wrong, a film starring Mae West and Cary Grant released the same year by a different studio featuring Wallace Beery's brother Noah Beery, Sr. in a similar role. Also, the part Wallace Beery plays in The Bowery, a saloon owner named Chuck Connors, appears in She Done Him Wrong as a small role and is played by a different actor.
Raoul Walsh had directed a groundbreaking film about the Bowery as far back as 1915. Regeneration (1915), shot on location in the Bowery the same year that Walsh played John Wilkes Boothe in D.W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation, was the first gangster movie and features tattered clothing on cast members far more ragged than anything seen in a more modern film.
[edit] External links
- The Bowery (1933 film) at the Internet Movie Database
- The Bowery (1933 film) at the TCM Movie Database
- The Bowery (1933 film) at AllRovi
- The Bowery at Shadowplay
