This is a very nice little
film noir, even though film noir puritists might argue about it being
a film noir in the first place. Well it's a drama involving criminal
activities with cynical attitudes and quite a few noirish shots, so
that's enough for me. Anyway the movie is set on the docks of East
River in New York where the rich and the poor neighborhood divide
sharing one block in between. That of course builds tensions between
the two “classes” and sure enough things end up getting violent.
The main couple of the movie is actually overshadowed by the
supporting characters so much that their ordeals end up being just
another story on the block. It's Humphrey Bogart's Baby Face Martin
and the Dead End Kids who run the show in this movie. Not only are
those characters more interesting, they are also played brilliantly.
The themes in this one are just as valid today as they were back in
the 30's, you could actually say they are even more relevant today as
the rich keep getting richer and the poor are still poor. William
Wyler does a great job at keeping the pace fast moving and the dialog
sounds real enough to fool me. The cinematography is at points very
straight forward, almost documentary like, which fits the story
brilliantly, but then again there are some absolutely stunning noir
like shots in there as well. Watching this now shows clearly that
it's shot in the studio and the matte paintings were rather visible,
especially as the DVD had a very nice image quality, that eats the
realism a bit, but in the end it didn't matter much. There were some
unintentionally funny moments, like when a guy gets killed the news
about it is already in the papers around the block few minutes later
and so on, but those are also partly the charm of old movies. Kind of
like winking at the viewer not to over think it, it fits the story so
just go with the ride. In the end this was a very good movie that has
stood time amazingly well.
87%
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