Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #71300 in DVD
• Released on: 2002-10-01
• Rating: Unrated
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Format: NTSC
• Original language: English
• Running time: 79 minutes

Video Details
As the mid-July sun sets on one of the summer's hottest days, little groups of people gather to discuss the newest neighborhood scandal. Standing in front of a rusty brownstone in Manhattan's West Sixties, they gossip about all the tenants of the building, but especially Mrs. Marrant, who has been seeing the local milkman behind her husband's back. When Mr. Marrant takes a trip out of town, the two lovers have a tragic meeting when her husband doubles back, catching them together. The confrontation will change everyone's lives forever, especially the Marrant's beautiful young daughter Rose (Sylvia Sidney, in one of her first starring roles), who is left to pick up the pieces of their shattered lives. Presented by Samuel Goldwyn and based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning drama by Elmer Rice, who also wrote the screenplay, director King Vidor (Duel In the Sun, Our Daily Bread) has fashioned a raw, harrowing and powerful film with striking camera work by Academy Award-winning cinematographer George Barnes (Rebecca) and musical direction by nine-time Oscar winner Alfred Newman (Camelot, The King and I).

Synopsis
Elmer Rice's Pulitzer Prize-winning play Street Scene was purchased for the screen by producer Samuel Goldwyn in 1931. The entire story takes place on the street in front of a foreboding old New York brownstone, between one evening and the next afternoon. The individual fates of eight neighboring Manhattan families intertwine during this brief stretch of time. Special emphasis is given the Maurrant family: the philandering mother (Estelle Taylor), the drink-sodden husband (David Landau) and long-suffering daughter Rose (Sylvia Sidney). When the husband catches the wife "in the act" with bill-collector Russell Hopton, the resulting tragedy is not shown, but reflecting in the wildly varying reactions of neighbors and passersby. Though resisting the temptation to "open up" the play, director King Vidor nonetheless injects his cinematic know-how into the proceedings, by utilizing an entirely different camera setup or angle for each individual "take." The cast of Street Scene includes several carry-overs from the Broadway original, including David Landau, Max Montor, Matt McHugh (brother of Frank), John Qualen, George Humbert, Tom H. Manning, and Anna Konstant (Sidebar: Shirley Kaplan, the role played by Ms. Konstant, was portrayed in the London production of Street Scene by Greer Garson). Unavailable for TV for many years due to legal tangles, Street Scene was freed up for the small screen when it lapsed into public domain in the early 1980s. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

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Customer Reviews

STREET SCENE: Sylvia Sidney Heats Up the Screen
Every so often heat becomes more than just a stifling rise in temperature designed to raise both a sweat and the tempers of the cast. Sometimes, heat acts as a metaphor to suggest the turmoil that often accompanies that heat rise. In STREET SCENE, director King Vidor took the Pulitzer Prize play by Elmer Rice and used Rice's own adaption to present a steamy day in a New York City tenement. A youthful Sylvia Sidney in one of her first starring roles shows the sloe-eyed sadness that came to mark her future screen persona. Sidney is Rose, a young girl who faces the double trauma of knowing that her mother has been carrying on an affair because her brute of a father radiates all the familial and paternal warmth of a vicious rat. Further complicating her life is her growing attraction for Sam (William Collier), a neighboring boy who suffers ostracism because of his Jewishness. The affair, the prejudice, the heat interact to produce an explosive climax that even today is remarkable in its jarring intensity. The technology of sound was in its infancy in 1931. Much of the dialogue and background auditory effects grate joltingly on the senses, which considering the frayed tempers exacerbated by the heat, is not necessarily a bad thing. STREET SCENE is the kind of unsettling film that makes you forget that film and sound technology need not be advanced for a superior script, fine acting, and first-rate directing to make you realize that you have just seen a gem of a film.

GREAT EARLY SYLVIA SIDNEY PERFORMANCE.
In a New York slum street on a hot, sweltering summer night, an adulterous woman is shot by her husband. Based upon Edgar Rice's Pulitzer-Prize-winning play about the lives of people who live on one West Side Manhattan street proved to have national appeal to movie audiences back in 1931. King Vidor wisely kept eight members of the original cast to insure realism. As Rose, Sylvia Sidney is outstanding. Originally, Nancy Carroll was to have played her (Erin O'Brien-Moore did the part on Broadway), but she was committed to Paramount. Vidor, never afraid of realism, insisted on the magnificently steamy, gritty street scene sets. Alfred Newman's evocative score is timeless piece of motion picture compositon: it's esteemed to this day. Beulah Bondi made her film debut here, and went on to become one of the finest and most respected character actresses in films. In her eighties, she won an Emmy for her performance in an episode of THE WALTONS.

A fine early Sylvia Sydney film
I bought this DVD as I'm a big fan of Sylvia Sidney and King Vidor. She looks wonderful, with a slightly different look from her more familiar late thirties incarnations. Vidor, on the other hand, is somewhat hampered by the constraints that were necessary in the early talkie period. When there is movement in the film it appears to have been shot silent (with added sound), otherwise the film is often rather static. Thus, although this film is similar in some respects to The Crowd, focussing on the lives of ordinary city dwellers, it cannot be said to be an advance in directoral terms. The story of the film is mature and adult, dealing with issues such as infidelity, prejudice and the damage of interfering gossip. There is not much glamour in this film and this makes it unusual for the period and certainly more serious. As with most early talkies, one of the problems with this film is the sound. At times one has to strain to hear the dialogue. The picture quality on the whole is fine, there are however some occassional jumps where a few frames have been lost. On the whole, this is a good example of an early talkie film and is well worth seeing. For Sylvia Sydney fans it is a must, even if she doesn't show up for nearly half an hour. Also for those obsessed with It's a Wonderful Life, it is worth noting the appearance of Belula Bondi (Jimmy Stewart's mother) in Street Scene. She looks much the same.