Film Forum

U.S., 1931
Directed by King Vidor
Starring Sylvia Sidney, William Collier, Jr., Beulah Bondi
Written by Elmer Rice
Based on Elmer Rice's 1929 play of the same name
Approx. 80 min. 35mm.

“At a working-class apartment building in a teeming New York neighborhood, a grim stagehand seethes with rage in jealous suspicion of his wife’s infidelity; their daughter, a secretary, is forcibly kissed by her married boss, who offers to make her a kept woman; a woman whose husband left her for another woman is facing eviction and homelessness. Through it all, the neighbors gossip while arguing about politics and venting ethnic prejudices. This agonized tangle of sexual violence, relentless poverty, crude emotions, and stifled dreams is the premise of King Vidor’s 1931 drama STREET SCENE, adapted from a celebrated play by Elmer Rice. With the cinematographer George Barnes, Vidor—keeping the stagelike setting outside the apartment building—sends the camera plunging frenetically into the fray and conjures the city’s architectural space with deep-focus images. The cast, largely borrowed from Broadway, is deftly flamboyant, but its Hollywood notables—David Landau, as the stagehand; Estelle Taylor, as his wife; and, above all, Sylvia Sidney, as the harassed secretary—are febrile, impulsive, vulnerable, and fiercely determined.” – The New Yorker

35mm preservation print courtesy of the UCLA Film & Television Archive. Preservation funding provided by the AFI/NEA.

Presented with support from The Ada Katz Fund for Literature in Film