Blast from the Past: King Vidor Revisited
King Vidor directed Street Scene, a Pre-Code drama, based on screenplay by Elmer Rice adapted from his Pulitzer Prize-winning play of the same name,
The tale takes place on a presumably “typical” Downtown New York street, with the action limited to one day, from the earlt evening until the following day’s afternoon.
The film features Sylvia Sidney, who would become a major star throughout the decade, working with such directors as Hitchcock and Fritz Lang.
The supporting cast includes Estelle Taylor, David Landau, William Collier Jr., and Beulah Bondi, in her screen debut that led to a lengthy, Oscar-nominated career as one of the industry’s most reliable supporting actresses.
On a hot summer afternoon on the front stoop of a Lower East Side tenement building, Emma Jones gossips with other neighbors about the affair of Mrs. Anna Maurrant (Estelle Taylor) and the milkman Steve Sankey. When the rude and unfriendly Mr. Frank Maurrant arrives, they change the subject.
Meanwhile, teenage daughter Rose Maurrant (Sidney) is sexually pressured by her married boss, Mr. Bert Easter. However, Rose likes her young Jewish neighbor Sam (William Collier Jr.)
Whe Maurrant tells his wife he is traveling to Stamford on business, Mrs. Maurrant meets the gentle Sankey in her apartment. Maurrant realizes his wife is upstairs, and the two men struggle as Sankey tries to escape. Maurrant kills Sankey and fatally wounds his wife.
Apprehended and led away by police, he apologizes to daughter Rose, who will now have to take care of herself and her young brother. Rose’s boss offers once again to set her up in her own apartment, but she refuses.
Sam pleads with Rose to go with him, but she tells him it will be better for the two to have some apart before they become a couple.
In the last shot, Rose walks off down the street by herself.
Except for one scene which takes place inside a taxi, Vidor shot the entire film on a single set depicting a city block of house fronts.
The music score is by Alfred Newman, his first complete score. Newman composed the title theme in the style of Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue.”
The theme has been used in Cry of the City, Kiss of Death, I Wake Up Screaming, Where the Sidewalk Ends, The Dark Corner, Gentleman’s Agreement, and as overture to How to Marry a Millionaire.
Visually, the film is largely shot through close-ups, and the camera rarely moves in what amounts to a static feature.
Cast
Sylvia Sidney as Rose Maurrant
William Collier Jr. as Sam Kaplan
Estelle Taylor as Mrs. Anna Maurrant
Beulah Bondi as Emma Jones
David Landau as Frank Maurrant
Matt McHugh as Vincent Jones
Russell Hopton as Steve Sankey
Greta Grandstedt as Mae Jones
Eleanor Wesselhoeft as Marguerite “Greta” Fiorentino
Allan Fox as Dick McGann
