The Interdepartmental Program in Film Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst



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The Interdepartmental Program in Film Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst

17th annual Massachusetts Multicultural Film Festival

“Cinematic Cities”



Sunshine and Shadow: NYC in Early Film

Screening date: Wednesday April 14, 2010 - 7:30 pm

137 Isenberg SOM

Synopsis of Dead End

1. Crawford, Rod. Dead End Summary. International Movie Database.



Bogart plays gangster, Baby face Martin, who has recently returned to the East side slum where he grew up, only to find his mother has denounced him as a murderer and the girlfriend he left behind has become a street walker. Characters struggle with violence and crime as they some to terms with their place in the city.


Reviews of Dead End

1. “Dead End.” Crazy4Cinema.com.



Like other reviews, the acting is highlighted for its humanism and engaging qualities. The production design and visual outcomes are striking, “Dirt just oozes off the screen. DEAD END is about as far away from an MGM musical of the same period as Pluto is from Earth. This no holds barred account sometimes brings the lives of these characters into too sharp a focus.” The review draws a parallel to modern societal disparities, “though DEAD END was made almost 65 years ago, it's messages are still as viable today for those living on the streets of America as they were then. At least we could blame our social problems on the Depression, we don't have much of an excuse today.”


2. Levy, Emanuel. “Dead End.” EmanuelLevy.com. 2008.

Awarding a ‘B’ grade, Levy believes the film to be “significant in the context of the Depression, when it was made. But it has not held up well and is not as interesting as later Wyler movies based on plays.” Levy provides more interesting notes on Dead End’s Academy Award performance (or non-performance, the film did not win in any nominations).


3. “Dead End Review.” Time Out London.

The review pronounces the film as likeable with some reservations, “cruising along like a well-oiled machine tended by an excellent cast, it remains highly watchable, even if the basic mawkishness […] keeps sticking in the craw.” Like other reviews, Time Out praises the acting of the cast as well as the production design.


4. “Dead End.” Variety. Jan 1, 1937.



Variety praises the acting delivered by the cast as well as the faithful adaptation of the theatrical material. On the other hand, the review somewhat chastises the makers for playing it safe, “The play whammed the idea across the footlights; the picture says and does everything the play said and did, and stops right there.”
Information on William Wyler

1. Biography of William Wyler. IMDB.com.



An acclaimed director, Wyler won 3 Academy Awards for Best Director in his 45 year career. Filming Dead End was a struggle for Wyler because at that time he was developing his own views about how the film should aesthetically look, while the Producer Samuel Goldwyn still had reign over final decisions.


2. Biography of William Wyler. WilliamWyler.com. Retrieved 3/31/2010.

http://www.williamwyler.com/bio/beginnings.html

Biography of William Wyler throughout his career from the director’s website. Details the beginning of his career, his years at Goldwyn, films made during WWII, and his later work.

3. Filmography of William Wyler. IMDB.com.



http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0943758/

A list of William Wyler’s accomplishments as a director, producer, actor and writer.


Information on The Musketeers of Pig Alley

1. “The Musketeers of Pig Alley.” YouTube.



The short film in its entirety for streamed viewing. Links to other D.W. Griffith short films, such as “The Mothering Heart,” “The Lonely Villa,” and “The Adventures of Dollie” are available.


2. “The Musketeers of Pig Alley and Selected D.W. Griffith Biograph Shorts, 1912-1913.” Journal of Popular Film & Television. June 22, 1994.

The author addresses how most historians would consider “The Musketeers of Pig Alley” the “prototype” for the entire gangster genre. The film’s acting and political ironies are later complemented. Griffith is also said to have mastered using New York City as a backdrop for gangster films.


Reviews of The Musketeers of Pig Alley

1. Rosow, Eugene. Born to Lose: The Gangster Film in America. New York: 1978.



Wellington Film Society.

< http://www.filmsociety.wellington.net.nz/db/screeningdetail.php?id=62>

Rosow reviews The Musketeers of Pig Alley, the first film of the Gangster genre, which according to actress Lillian Gish was inspired by a 1912 newspaper article. Griffith cast actual gangsters like ‘Harlem’ Tom Evans and ‘Kid’ Brood to play rival gangsters in the film, and Elmer Booth to play the Snapper Kid, head of the Musketeers. This film paints the Snapper Kid in a sympathetic light, showing his inability to move up in society symbolized in the way the audience never sees any shot of the sky, only tight alleyways and dark saloons. This film established the essentials in the genre.


Information on D.W. Griffith

1. "D.W. Griffith - About D.W. Griffith | American Masters |." PBS. Educational Broadcasting Corporation, 29 Dec. 1998.



The article offers a shortened trajectory of Griffith’s life, focusing on his professional achievements. Lacking formal education, Griffith developed an affinity for theatrical works, intending to become a playwright. Learning the craft of filmmaking, an emerging medium at the beginning of the 20th century, Griffith manipulated its production elements to develop his personal style, “crosscut editing to build tension, acute observation of details to heighten reality, and the use of the camera as a vehicle for expounding his views on society.” His masterpiece, Birth of a Nation (1915), is hailed as both progressive in production technique and backwards in its romantic portrayal of Southern prejudice. Despite declining in creative output in the 1920s, Griffith is hailed as the trailblazer of cinema.


2. "D.W. Griffith Biography -." Biography.com. A&E Television Networks.

Echoing the director’s legacy on cinema, Henderson believes, “More than any other individual, Griffith developed the techniques through which motion pictures became an art form – an instrument able to express emotions and ideas.” Besides pioneering production techniques, Griffith also introduced several stars to the world including Lilian Gish, Lionel Barrymore, and Mary Pickford.


3. Pierce, David. "Silent Film Sources Review." CINEMAWEB. 1997.

DW Griffith has been called ‘the Dickens of Film.’ Pierce details the large impact Griffith has had on the development of the American Film industry and reviews the box set ‘DW Griffith’s Years of Discovery’ which includes Musketeers of Pig Alley and The Female of the Species among others.


4. "D.W. Griffith Filmography." The Internet Movie Database (IMDb).http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000428/
Interviews with Daniel Czitrom and Reviews of His Work

1.

An online video of Daniel Czitrom discussing the impact of 9/11 on American life.
2. Power, Matthew. “The Other Half.” New York Times. May 25, 2008.

< http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/25/books/review/Power-t.html?ref=books>

Power assesses the balanced approach used by Czitrom to examine Riis’ public persona and his prejudices as a private citizen, “In this book, Czitrom and Yochelson attempt to debunk some of the aestheticization and to reclaim for Riis a more complex historical role: as an opportunist and evangelist of reform. Reassessments aside, Riis’ lightning-flash images of social catastrophe still have the power to shock, even after 120 years.”


3. Roberts, Sam. “Witness to the Poor, and a Grand Ship Undone.” New York Times.

March 9, 2008.

< http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/09/nyregion/thecity/09read.html>

Roberts believes the book to be “too technical” at points but ultimately praises Rediscovering Jacob Riis as “an evocative and valuable reminder both of one unrelenting individual’s ability to make a difference and of the relevance of his revelations to the painfully familiar problems we face today.”



Information on the Gangster Genre

1. Dirks, Tom. “Crime and Gangster Films.” AMC Filmsite.

http://www.filmsite.org/crimefilms.html

Tom Dirks gives an account of the most influential films in the Gangster genre, including Musketeers of Pig Alley (1912) up to more recent adaptations of the genre like 2002’s Gangs of New York. He also shows the differentiation of sub-genres throughout the years, including Prison films, the merge of Film Noir and Gangster film, and Caper films. Quentin Tarantino is also cited as a director who made his name in the 90’s being influenced by crime-drama leading to films like Pulp Fiction (1994) and Reservoir Dogs (1992).


2. Munby, Jonathan. “Manhattan Melodrama’s ‘Art of the Weak’: Telling History from the Other Side in the 1930s Talking Gangster Film.” Journal of American Studies 30 (1996): 101-118.

< http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/27556062.pdf>

Munby examines Manhattan Melodrama (1934) and the ambivalent position of the gangster picture in 1930s America, “The 1930s gangster film is a prime example, its commercial success being dependent on a mass interest in the realm of ethnic urban lower class experience. The genre’s mass popularity testified to the fact that even if these American ‘others’ continued to be historically and politically marginalized they were becoming culturally central to the life of the nation […] As a new screen idol, the gangster was perceived by an embattled Anglo-Saxon hegemony as the most conspicuous example of twin modern evils: the corrupting force of mass culture on one hand, and the culture of the immigrant or ‘new’ American, on the other” (102-103).

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