Just saw this at a revival today and had a good time. This week we also celebrate
Jackie Cooper's 87th birthday (born September 15, 1922). Also born on the same day, the late Fay Wray (September 15, 1907, d. 2004) The title of this picture "The Bowery" reminds me of
the Bowery Boys, that fun series of movies from the 40s which featured that gang of dudes from the lower east side bowery, pretty much the same neighborhood here. And because George Raft is in it, I mistakingly thought this was a gangster picture. But it's not. Surprisingly, it's a comedy-with-heart, loosely based on some real life events (NY Saloon owner
Steve Brodie jumping off the Brooklyn Bridge). This movie could be considered a "sequel" of sorts to "The Champ", which starred Wallace Beery and little Jackie Cooper just two years earlier. In "The Bowery", Beery and Raft are are rivals in the community, in a never-ending battle for being the "King of the Bowery" neighborhood. Each has a "fan club" of sorts within the community. For a time they both are leaders of a fire brigade: in one humorous scene, as a building burns with people trapped inside, the two men (and their fire-fighting crew) get into a street brawl as each team tries to get the building first. This leads to a riot as the unsaved people scream from the building. Rather dark humor, and this scene disturbed some people at the screening, especially since the characters were Chinese (earlier they were referred to as "Chinks" by some of the characters.) Also politically incorrect: Beery gives young Jackie a lecture in "dames" ("Skirts is no good"), but later the big lug is smitten by penniless Fay Wray: he lets her stay in his apartment (also where orphan Jackie is also staying) and hires her as a maid. Needless to say, Jackie throws a fit. In one scene he hits Fay in the butt with his slingshot. Meanwhile George Raft's Steve Brodie character falls in love with her, complicating the rivalry further. There's a great scene on the beach (which should have been longer) with everyone having a good time. There was an intermission at the screening halfway through, and one fellow sitting next to me said how he felt the movie had no plot. Essentially so, since it's really about the egos of both Beery and Raft, and how they compete against each other in the neighborhood. It's all buildup to the big Steve Brodie "jump" scene. By the time it happens, the audience is convinced that Brodie would pull such a stunt. At the end, there's a climatic fight scene between the two men, but ends with both shaking hands, with Jackie Cooper playing mediator. It's a fun movie, lots of cultural references of the time, and it will remind you of some of the issues of that day: some of the racism, street fights, and women's temperance unions (there is a scene of protest outside a saloon).
Now here is what
Wikipedia had to say (this write-up prepared me for the derogatory racial terms used by some of the characters):
"The Bowery" is a 1933 historical film about the Lower East Side of Manhattan at the turn of the century. The movie was directed by Raoul Walsh and featured
Wallace Beery as saloon owner Chuck Connors,
George Raft as
Steve Brodie, the first man to jump off the Brooklyn Bridge and live,
Jackie Cooper as a pugnacious child, Fay Wray (in the same year as King Kong) as the leading lady, and Pert Kelton (the first "Alice Kramden" on Jackie Gleason's The Honeymooners) as a bawdy dance hall singer.
The film is not exactly a festival of political correctness, but it is an absorbing presentation of the views and behaviors common at the time. Modern viewers should know that the movie opens with a close-up of a saloon window featuring a sign saying "Nigger Joe's" in large letters (the name of an actual Bowery bar from the period). At one point, Cooper's character throws a rock through a Chinatown window, knocking over a kerosene lamp and causing a lethal fire that spreads through the block. When Beery's character berates him for carelessly killing so many innocent Chinese people, Cooper's character responds, "They was just Chinks," whereupon Beery immediately softens, saying "Awww..." while affectionately mussing the boy's hair.
New York Times review from 1933---
By MORDAUNT HALL,
New York Times
Published: October 5, 1933
Punctuated with the same ribald mirth, brawls, fights, noise and vulgarity that marked that reprehensible but highly successful production, "The Cock-Eyed World," there reached
the Rivoli yesterday morning a picture entitled "The Bowery," the story of which owes its origin to a novel written by Michael Simmons and B. Rogow Solomon. In it Wallace Beery as Chuck Connors and George Raft as
Steve Brodie are belligerent rivals.
The narrative of this film, which is the first to be produced by Darryl Zanuck since he severed his connection with the Warner Brothers, is set in what the producers choose to refer to as the "Gay Nineties." Nevertheless, Mr. Brodie is presumed to take his leap from the Brooklyn Bridge, which actually was reported to have happened in 1886. Other personalities of the past include John L. Sullivan and the saloon-smashing
Carrie Nation.
"The Bowery" was directed by Raoul Walsh, who was responsible for "The Cock-Eyed World." The audience which packed the theatre for the first showing of "The Bowery" was quite enthusiastic over the clashes between Chuck Connors and Steve Brodie and they also evidently enjoyed the episode wherein Carrie Nation and her colleagues use their hatches on the Connors saloon.
There are songs that range from "Tra-ra-ra-boom-de-ay" to "Auid Lang Syne" and the costumes are often clownish conceptions of those of the past. Connors appears to be partial to double-breasted coats with huge pearl buttons, and his rival, Brodie, at one time appears in a dark suit, pearl-gray derby, black shirt, a white necktie with black dots, and, if you please, white gloves. Later, after he has made his dive from the Brooklyn Bridge and money is coming his way, he is given to wearing a black cape with a white-silk lining. In the report in THE NEW YORK TIMES of July 24, 1886, the day after Brodie took the chance, he is referred to as a tall, slim newsboy, who was dressed like a gutter-snipe. All he really got out of his plunge into the East River was $200 and a few days in the Tombs prison.
This film, however, is not one in which the producers are concerned with facts. It is something to entertain the many admirers of Wallace Beery and George Raft, and incidentally those of little Jackie Cooper, who here is known as Swipes, a protégé of Connors's. Swipes is fond of reiterating what he has heard Connors say—that it is a man's world. Fay Wray portrays Lucy Calhoun, a timid young woman who is befriended by Connors. Her presence causes Swipes to pick up his belongings, which include two kittens, and go to live with Brodie.
In the rather cramped quarters of Connors's saloon John L. Sullivan, played by Raoul Walsh's brother, George, knocks out Bloody Butch, the pride of the Bowery, with his first blow. Sullivan is masked when he enters the ring, but as-soon as his opponent is down for the count his face is unmasked and there stands a fighter with a long mustache.
Connors wagers his saloon, evidently against nothing, that Brodie will not take the dive from the Brooklyn Bridge, but, after the latter has accomplished the feat,
Carrie Nation and her band of women appear and it matters not to Chuck what they do to the saloon with their hatchets. Apparently Brodie is forced to make his thrilling jump because the dummy he had hoped to use to cheat Chuck is stolen from him just as he is about to go to the Brooklyn Bridge.
Whatever one may say against the coarse interludes in this production, there is no gainsaying that the sight on the span between Manhattan and Brooklyn is really funny. The crowds have come out as they would go to a picnic to view the stunt and many a bet is made on whether Brodie will live or die in the attempt. Several other episodes have been pictured in the same vein.
Mr. Beery acts in his usual robust but nevertheless effective fashion. Mr. Raft is on his mettle as Brodie and Jackie Cooper does well with his part. Fay Wray is attractive as Lucy Calhoun and Elsie Harmer is sufficiently menacing as Carrie Nation.
THE BOWERY, based on the novel by Michael Simmons and B. Rogow Solomon; directed by Raoul Walsh; a Twentieth Century production; released by United Artists. At the Rivoli.
Chuck Connors . . . . . Wallace Beery
Steve Brodie . . . . . George Raft
Swipes . . . . . Jackie Cooper
Lucy Calhoun . . . . . Fay Wray
Slick . . . . . Harold Huber
Googy . . . . . Fletcher Norton
Lumpy Hogan . . . . . John Kelly
Trixie . . . . . Pert Kelton
Jumbo . . . . . Fred Munier
Mr. Rummel . . . . . Oscar Apfel
Mr. Herman . . . . . Herman Bing
John L. Sullivan . . . . . George Walsh
Carrie Nation . . . . . Elsie Harmer
Tammany . . . . . Tammany Young
Read a 1932 article on "Master" Jackie Cooper.
