Street Scene

The entire film takes place in front of one New York tenement. The camera almost never leaves the stoop, and the neighbours sit and talk: gossip, rent, work, immigration, jealousy. That ordinary flow tightens by degrees toward a killing. King Vidor adapted Elmer Rice's Pulitzer-winning play and deliberately refused to open the setting out, breaking the theatrical feel instead by keeping the camera in constant motion. Sylvia Sidney plays the young woman at the centre. Alfred Newman's opening music was imitated so widely that it became the standard sound of a city scene. The way neighbours of different nationalities look at each other is the liveliest thing in it. Who it is for: viewers interested in early sound cinema and social drama built in one location. Who it is not for: anyone wanting variety of setting, since this is bolted to a single pavement.