Street of Chance

William Powell is on the "Street of Chance" in this 1930 film also starring Kay Francis, Jean Arthur, and Regis Toomey.

I will admit right off that I did not recognize either Arthur or Toomey in this film.

Powell plays "Natural" Davis, a character modeled on the famed gambler Arnold Rothstein. The film portrays a couple of incidents in Rothstein's life, but in my opinion, the character is very loosely based on Rothstein.

Natural Davis is a professional gambler, and as a result, his wife Alma (Kay Francis) is divorcing him. He begs her to stay with him, eventually promising her that he will not only quit gambling, but go away with her on an extended trip..

When is brother Babe (Toomey) comes to town, Natural learns that his wedding gift of $10,000 has been spent gambling. Babe is a big winner and now has $50,000. He's in New York to gamble for $100,000 more so he can buy into a partnership.

Let me pause for a minute. The amounts of money these people are talking about are unbelievable. In 1930, $100,000 was 1,611,946.11 in today's money! Usually in films people are robbing banks for $5,000 or trying to get $50 from someone.

To continue - Natural does not want his brother to pursue the life of a gambler, so he's determined to make sure Babe is cleaned out. He arranges for his associates to help him, joining Babe in a game. It doesn't quite work out as he hoped. In a bind, he has to break his promise to Alma temporarily, but she doesn't buy it.

Powell is natural and very effective, and the film moves quickly, with people picking up their dialogue cues. Often in early talkies, actors were still adjusting to sound. As a result you get pauses between lines of dialogue, and, because of stage training, big gestures and loud voices. Powell has none of this. He's tough yet elegant and sympathetic yet ruthless.

Francis doesn't have much to do as Natural's suffering wife, but she's very good. The rest of the acting is fine, but you could have knocked me over with a feather when I learned that Babe was Regis Toomey and his wife was Jean Arthur! Arthur had none of the characteristics she later developed. Here, she's pure ingenue.

One of the most interesting things about these precode films is that because there is no Hayes code, the ending is not predictable as it is in many later films. The end of this kind of surprised me.

In this film, the always debonair William Powell plays a businessman leading a double life as "Natural" Davis, an elite gambler with a penchant for winning because he "knows the percentages." He deals with gangsters and can summon up toughness when he needs to, but he also has personal integrity and treats people with fairness, at least, per his world's code. He's thus another example the common (and rather dubious) film trope of a guy who's operating outside the law, but lives by a moral code and is established as virtuous anyway. Here that's somehow true even when we see him order another gambler to be murdered because he's caught him stealing from him. Naturally, the violence isn't depicted.

Trouble comes to Natural Davis in two forms: (1) his wife (Kay Francis) is fed up with his late nights and threatens to call it quits, and (2) his little brother (Regis Toomey) comes to town looking to gamble himself, not knowing that the legendary Natural Davis is his own brother. Natural tries to do the right thing on both fronts, that is, to make drastic changes to preserve his marriage, and to attempt to dissuade his brother from the sordid life of gambling. His idea is a little trickery to do the latter, leading to a pretty fine scene of the brothers in a high stakes poker game together.

The film is certainly stronger towards the end, but it's a little mechanical getting there, stretching its simplistic plot out to fill the runtime. It's not clear how this nominated for a Best Writing Oscar, but 1930 was not a particularly strong year for films, with filmmakers still adapting to sound (the following years up to the end of the pre-Code era are certainly better). Regardless, from where I sit, Kay Francis and Jean Arthur (who plays the brother's wife) were largely wasted, their characters mostly just planets in orbit around Powell's. There is drama leading to a great final line from Powell, but the story line for the brother was unsatisfactory because it seemed far too tidy (wow, cured just like that, despite the temptation on the train!).

With that said, the film is worth seeing if you're a fan of the stars, and there were also various little things from the era that caught my eye. Mostly these are shots in New York, including the light streaming through the windows of Grand Central Station, and the big billboards for James J. Walker, a Tammany Hall mayor who was forced to resign a couple of years later. I also liked the neon sign advertising Spider-Web Hosiery in the background of the scene Powell has with Arthur. Lastly, it was interesting to see the swastika on some of the poker chips, but while the Nazis had already appropriated the symbol by this time, it appears these types of chips had been made for decades in America, and mercifully no fascist sympathies were being subtly expressed.

... with "The Czar of Broadway" being a different film made in the same year loosely based on the famous gambler's life.

John Marsden (William Powell) is a big time professional gambler who goes by the name "Natural Davis" when gambling. He has an office where he is supposed to be buying and selling bonds that acts as a front. John has a baby brother "Babe" (Regis Toomey) who lives on the west coast and who has very recently married Judith (Jean Arthur). They have come to New York City on their honeymoon. What Judith doesn't know is that Babe has run up John's wedding gift to them of ten thousand dollars to fifty thousand dollars by gambling and intends to continue gambling in New York to get the 150K that he needs to buy into the partnership of a firm. At the same time, John's wife Alma (Kay Francis) has served him with divorce papers after a six month separation, and she will not consider reconciling unless John retires as a professional gambler and leaves town with her.

John agrees to stop gambling and leave town with his wife, but shortly thereafter finds out that his brother is getting way in over his head gambling with the kinds of hoods who work along Broadway, and he's put in the position of either having to stop his brother and save him from the path he's been on all of these years, or have one last chance with his wife. Complications ensue.

William Powell played villains through 1928 at Paramount as his looks - if you knew nothing about his voice - allow him to look rather menacing. This was one of those films in which he was playing a bigger role than the types he had in the silent era, yet he is still playing a rather dark character. In spite of some of his more dastardly deeds, though, he is a relatable and even sympathetic protagonist.

I wish this film was better known, and I'd recommend this one. It has plenty of atmosphere - it's almost noirish in style and substance rather than a precode - and it is a good showcase for the talent of the main players, although Jean Arthur is almost unrecognizable here.

Unlike a lot of very early talkies, this was made by a director for whom the introduction of sound didn't make him forget how to make films. It's clearly not as technologically advanced as pictures made just a year later but it's a remarkably professionally executed and well acted film.

Like the previous picture John Cromwell made for Selznick, THE DANCE OF LIFE, this also has none of those awful traits which blighted the very early talkies. It's dynamic, it's realistic and its dialogue feels natural. Scenes are allowed to develop and play out - there's none of that: switch the camera on - say the lines - switch the camera off technique common in say some Warner Brothers pictures where every foot of celluloid had to be accounted for. You're given the luxury to fully absorb what you're seeing - and indeed hearing. Such a pace could in a lesser movie result in a static, talky meandering malaise but fortunately this film's lively script and realistic characters keep your interest.

In an era of often simplistic stories, this is a surprisingly mature and intelligent offering. It's a serious and somber film about serious and somber issues but it successfully manages to distill all of that neatly into ninety minutes. Many years later Warners tackled the problem of gambling with its Edward G Robinson vehicle, DARK HAZARD. That had a much more light hearted approach which made it more accessible but although this isn't as enjoyable - you'll not smile much watching this - it's just as engrossing.

It's a real revelation to see William Powell not playing the usual debonair sophisticated cool guy. For a change, he's a somewhat damaged and unpleasant character but William Powell of course is just so likeable you're immediately on his side. The one loose wheel in this picture is, as is so often the case, Kay Francis. She was pretty good in a few films but her default affected acting style, gazing wistfully into the distance to speak her lines feels out of step with the rest of this film. I don't think she was quite ready for a lead part just yet in her career.

It's a good film, it's entertaining and it skilfully builds up the tension to an astonishing level towards the end but it's perhaps a film you appreciate more than you actually enjoy.

This was quite enjoyable on a few levels. The lead actors in general has good strong performances, with Kay Francis having a few bad scenes. I blame the director for choosing those because other scene with her were totally believable. At first the story seemed a little confusing but quickly was understandable. A couple favorite scenes of mine were where William Powell finishes talking to Kay Francis and then walks out. Most films of the time would have cut the moment he walked out, but the camera kept rolling and we saw Francis slump down in dispare. The other favorite was the top down card scene towards the end. Overall, I would mainly recommend this to fans of the Thin Man series or other serious "black and white fans." It's definitely a hidden gem.