Park Row

In this day and age where the print media is struggling to survive back in 1886 when this story takes place New York had something like 20 papers all fighting for circulation. A lot of them came and went with great rapidity. Many were backed by the political parties of the day and they sustained them.

Park Row is the street to the east of New York City's City Hall and it only runs three short blocks. But back in 1886 several papers of the tabloid variety had their offices and printing establishments there. This film Park Row is the story of two of them where the feuding got downright personal.

Mary Hackett who is a real queen of mean fires a whole bunch of her staff over editorial policy disagreement including Gene Evans who takes the fired workers and starts his own tabloid. He gets a super big break when George O'Hanlon playing the legendary Steve Brodie makes his famous dive off the Brooklyn Bridge and Evans gets the bead on the story first. After that Hackett fights and fights real dirty. She especially doesn't like the fact that Evans has spurned her.

Samuel Fuller directed this admirable B film with a cast of no real names, but that in itself gives it a realistic look. That look is at an era that is gone, but not forgotten. By the way another look at this same era can be seen in the film Newsies which is currently on Broadway now.

Still without the singing and dancing of Newsies, I think Park Row will give you an idea of what was going on during those times.

Samuel Fuller was a newspaperman before he was a filmmaker and his passion for journalism and free speech infuses every frame of "Park Row" making this one of his most enjoyable pictures which, for a movie about the printed page, is intensely cinematic. Of course, whether Fuller was a good journalist, a great journalist or even a lousy journalist I can't say but he had one of the great eyes in American cinema and he knew, in movie after movie, how to bombard our senses with a host of images that gave his films, be they westerns, thrillers, war pictures or, in this case, simply a picture about the founding of a newspaper, the feeling they were ripped from today's headlines.

The plot of "Park Row" is relatively thin. Gene Evans is the newspaper man who becomes the editor of a crusading newspaper in opposition to the more powerful paper from which he's just been fired. It is, in other words, a feelgood movie about a David triumphing over a mean old Goliath, (in this case represented by Mary Welch's excellent performance as the owner of the rival paper), but it's a populist picture with none of the sentimentality that Capra would have brought to it. Indeed, being a Sam Fuller picture, there's a fair amount of violence en route to the happy ending. It also has one of Fuller's best scripts; this is a movie full of crisp dialogue that makes great use of factual material. Amazingly, despite it's substantial critical reputation, it's seldom revived. Time, I think, to rectify that.

It's about a 19th century New York City newspaper editorial writer, Phineas Mitchell, who is fired when he insults the owner of the newspaper he works for, The Star. Some of his companions are also fired when they back him up. An older journalist mentions to Mitchell that he has some money - enough to start up a newspaper. And so The Globe is born with the highest journalistic standards of integrity. At first Mitchell's former employer, Charity Hackett, laughs at their efforts. But soon The Globe's innovation and enterprise are threatening her circulation and she tries to shut them down by any means, fair or foul.

This is a completely fictional story, but it incorporates enough truth to be confusing. In the 1880s Park Row was newspaper row in New York City. There was a campaign that looks like crowdfunding today to finance the pedestal for the Statue of Liberty so the monument could be completed. There was an Ottmar Mergenthaler who invented the linotype machine, the first device that could easily and quickly set complete lines of type for use in printing presses. But all of these things did not take place under one roof for one newspaper. The film does have a pretty accurate depiction of newspaper printing as it occurred in the late 1800s, and that is the most interesting aspect of it.

I could deal with the confusion, but then there is the ham fisted romance/ sexual tension between The Star's Charity Hackett and The Globe's Phineas Mitchell. It reminded me of Hill Street Blues' romance between police captain Frank Furillo and public defender Joyce Davenport - If these two people really believe in what they are doing, how could they ever be attracted to one another? But then I am showing my age to explain a 70 year old movie in terms of a 40 year old TV show.

Overall, I'd recommend it. This was a passion project for Sam Fuller as he used his own money to produce it. Just be prepared for it to be a bit of an uneven ride.

Sage old reporter Josiah Davenport says this to crusading editor Phineas Mitchell, but writer/director Sam Fuller might have been speaking to himself when he wrote the line. He is clearly pining for the long-dead old days of newspapers in New York-- and with good reason, check http://www.nysl.nysed.gov/nysnp/history.htm for a brief and amazing history.

The IMDb reviewer, st-shot, who called this movie a "valentine" hit the mark. This valentine has a fair amount going for it, but it's more flawed than faithful. A newspaperman himself (ca. 1930), Fuller prided himself on the historical accuracy of "Park Row" and there is truth behind, if not in, many of the people and events alluded to in the screenplay: The base of the Statue of Liberty, which was unveiled in 1886 when the movie takes place, was indeed partly paid for by a newspaper campaign (Joseph Pulitzer's "New York World"). A Bowery bookie named Steve Brodie did claim to have jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge that same year, and survived to both acclaim and controversy. Linotype was indeed invented by German immigrant Ottmar Mergenthaler in 1886, but it wasn't for a Park Row newspaper, it was for lawyers wanting a way to get legal papers printed faster. The young political cartoonist called "Thomas Guest" is obviously a thinly veiled Thomas Nast, who would have been in his mid-40s and very famous by 1886.

Much of that cinematic license can be forgiven, because the problem isn't the lack of historical accuracy; it's Fuller's proud claim that it WAS accurate. Perhaps he was referring to the typesetting and printing processes he shows in such loving detail-- which certainly are fun and fascinating to see.

Then there's the plot, another big problem. Melodrama was Fuller's Achilles' heel (see THE NAKED KISS for Fuller at his lawless heights) and he pours it on rather thickly here-- injured towheaded kid, heroic journalists, rival editor and publisher as the Clark Kent & Lois Lane of 1886. But, while the movie is more frenetic than energetic, there's enough camera movement and odd angles to establish this firmly as a Fuller film, and therefore worth seeing. Once.

Sam Fuller is not a name most folks would recognize. However, to film lovers and critics, he's a famous guy--famous for making really good movies that are without the usual clichés and frills as well as with very low budgets. In the case of "Park Row", for instance, he completely financed the movie with his own money! And, it stars Gene Evans--an ordinary looking guy who starred is several Fuller films.

The story is about a guy who is fired from one New York newspaper and decides to start his own. However, the deck is definitely stacked against him and a tough female newspaper owner seems willing to do anything to see his paper fail--and she takes this competition very personally. At first, she laughs off his attempts to put out a paper. But, when he starts seeing success after success, the competition becomes very dirty. In fact, the ugliness of this fight surprised me...it was THAT tough!

The film has some amazingly good camera-work--with great lighting and composition. It never looks cheap. Additionally, Evans is memorable as a tough guy who not only can out-think but out-punch his competition! His intensity is what makes the film. Overall, despite a few rough moments, it's a great textbook example that a film doesn't have to be expensive or filled with mega-stars to be a very good picture.