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The Docks of New York
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Wikipedia article
'The Docks of New York' is a 1928 American silent drama film directed by Josef von Sternberg and starring George Bancroft, Betty Compson, and Olga Baclanova. The movie was adapted by Jules Furthman from the John Monk Saunders story 'The Dock Walloper'.[http://www.silentera.com/PSFL/data/D/DocksOfNewYork1928.html Progressive Silent Film List: 'The Docks of New York'] at silentera.com[http://www.afi.com/members/catalog/DetailView.aspx?s=&Movie=3785 The AFI Catalog of Feature Films:'The Docks of New York']
Plot
An American tramp steamer docks in New York harbor sometime in the early years of the 20th century before prohibition. In the bowels of the ship, coal stokers are shutting down the furnaces and anticipating a night of shore leave. The bullying third engineer, Andy (Mitchell Lewis) warns the exhausted crew that they will be punished if they return drunk when the vessel sails the following morning. The stokers gather to leer at crude pornographic graffiti scrawled on the engine room wall before debarking to carouse at the local gin-mills.
On shore, Andy enters The Sandbar, dance-hall saloon, craving a beer and female companionship. He has unexpected encounter with his estranged wife, Lou (Olga Bachonova). During his absence of three years, she has become a 'habitu' of the saloon, where she freely enjoys male companionship. The couple joins one another for a drink; no love is lost between them.
The stoker Bill Roberts (George Bancroft) a swaggering brawler when on leave rescues a drowning prostitute named Mae (Betty Compson) who has leapt off the dock to end her sordid life. Bill, ignoring the admonishment of his sidekick Sugar Steve (Clyde Cook), impassively carries the semi-conscious woman to a room above The Sandbar, indifferent to the protests from the proprietor's wife, Mrs. Crimp (May Foster). Lou intercedes to provide first-aid and revives Mae, a fallen angel like herself. Bill's growing awareness of Mae's physical beauty assumes a proprietary quality. He fetches her a beverage from the bar and presents her with a pretty dress he steals from a pawn shop next door. Bill exhorts her to join him for the evening, and Mae, distraught and vulnerable, accepts his invitation. They meet downstairs in the raucous tavern.
Andy attempts to pull rank and cut in on the couple, but the powerful stoker drives him off with blows. Lou, observing her husband's boorishness, looks on with contempt. Mae and Bill mutually confess their sexual histories to one another, she with regret, he with masculine pride. So as to win Mae's favors for the night, Bill consents to marry her on the spot, and Mae wistfully obliges.
The local missionary Hymn Book Harry (Gustav von Seyffertitz) is summoned and sternly delivers the sacrament. Lou provides Mae with a ring: her own, now superfluous wedding ring. The couple takes their vows, each shamefacedly, and the formerly boisterous patrons observe with mock solemnity, then erupt in cheers when the newlyweds kiss.
The following morning, Bill slips quietly from the flophouse honeymoon suite, without a word to Mae. Andy, observing that the stoker is abandoning his wife, goes to Mae's room, where she has just discovered Bill's desertion. Andy attempts to force himself on her, but Lou arrives and guns him down. The police suspect Mae of the murder, but Lou confesses and is arrested.
Under the blandishments of Sugar Steve, Bill takes leave of Mae. Driven to distraction by his perfidy, she angrily drives him from her room.
Aboard the steamer, Bill has an epiphany. He bolts from the subterranean furnaces to the sunny deck, leaps overboard and swims to shore. There he inquires as to Mae's whereabouts and discovers that she is in custody at Night Court, charged with stealing the clothing he had bestowed on her. Moments after the judge sentences her to jail, Bill presents himself and confesses to the crime, exonerating Mae. He pledges to reunite with Mae after he serves his 60-day sentence, and she agrees to wait for him.
Cast
*George Bancroft as Bill Roberts
*Betty Compson as Mae
*Olga Baclanova as Lou (Andy's wife)
*Clyde Cook "Sugar" Steve (Bill's buddy)
*Mitchell Lewis as Andy (the third engineer)
*Gustav von Seyffertitz as "Hymn Book" Harry
Uncredited
*Richard Alexander as Lou's Sweetheart*May Foster as Mrs. Crimp
*George Irving as Night Court Judge
*John Kelly as Sailor Barfly
*Charles McMurphy as Policeman
*Guy Oliver as The Crimp
*Bob Reeves as Court Bailiff
*Lillian Worth as Steve's Girl
Production
On May 5, 1928 Paramount Pictures announced their next picture would be 'The Docks of New York'; with Josef von Sternberg enlisted to direct and George Bancroft to star with an adapted script of Monk Saunders's 'The Dock Walloper' provided by Jules Furthman. Before production von Sternberg and Furthman went to New York to conduct research for the film.
A highly collaborative work, 'The Docks of New York' benefited from the screenwriting of Jules Furthman, such that the directors vision...cannot be easily distinguished from Furthmans scenarios."Silver, 2010 Scripting for Sternberg's most celebrated movies, among them 'Morocco' (1930), 'Shanghai Express' (1932) and 'Blonde Venus' (1932) was provided by Furthmann.Silver, 2012
Muller, 2012 Sternberg also benefited from the cinematography of Harold Rosson, who was inspired by the director's fresh, innovative ideas. Rosson would be contracted by MGM studios and win the Oscar for Cinematography for 'The Wizard of Oz'.Muller, 2012
Blick, 2012: Rossens elegant cinematography Art director Hans Dreier, formerly of Germany's UFA, created the evocative set for the 'Sandbar' saloon with its subjective 'demimonde' atmosphere of Sternberg's New York waterfront. Dreier would subsequently oversee studio production design for decades as head of Paramount's art department.Muller, 2012.
Production began on the film on June 25, with principal photography beginning on July 10, 1928. The production was shot entirely at Paramount Studios where they created sets to resemble the New York City waterfront.
The Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America, formed by the film industry in 1922, regulated the content of films through a list of subjects that were to be avoided. While Betty Compson portrayed a prostitute in 'The Docks of New York', this was acceptable as prostitution was not explicitly barred so long as it was not forced (i.e., white slavery) and aspects of her work was not directly shown in the film. The wedding ceremony held in the bar makes later activities in the film ambiguous.
Release
The film opened in New York City on September 16, 1928, at the Paramount Theatre and was released on September 29 throughout other parts of the country. The film earned $88,000 in its first week of release at the Paramount Theatre, breaking a record set previously by von Sternberg's 1927 film 'Underworld', also starring George Bancroft.
Reception
'Variety' called the film a corking program picture and says the film misses greatness by a whisker. They also praised the performance of Bancroft, the direction of von Sternberg, the cinematography of Harold Rosson, and the intertitles from Julian Johnson.American Film Institute Catalog, The Docks of New York (1929). Retrieved April 24, 2018. https://catalog.afi.com/Catalog/moviedetails/3785
Film critic John Baxter observed that "'The Docks of New York'...is today the most popular of Sternberg's silent films, although it did poorly at the box-office on its release."Baxter, 1971. p. 54
'The Docks of New York' was one of the last films of the silent era. Previewed by the New York City press during the same week that saw the fanfare opening of Al Jolsons 'The Singing Fool', Sternbergs film was completely passed over in the clamor that accompanied the advent of talking pictures. Film critic Andrew Sarris lamented that Sternberg's film quickly vanished in undeserved oblivion...confirm[ing] Chaplins observation that the silent movies learned their craft just about the time they went out of business.Sarris, 1966. p. 19
Museum of Modern Art film curator Charles Silver ranked 'The Docks of New York' as probably the last genuinely great silent film made in Hollywood [rivaling] Chaplins masterpieces of the 1930s.Silver, 2012 With respect to Sternberg's oeuvre, 'The Docks of New York' was the first in which his prodigious pictorial genius was fully realized. A deceptively simple and emotionally affecting film, Sternberg combined spectacle and emotion, where "his characters gain in clarity what they lose in complexity."
The film holds a score of 100% on Rotten Tomatoes.
'The Docks of New York' was added to the Criterion Collection in 2010 as part of the Three Silent Classics by Josef von Sternberg series.
Themes
Despite the lurid mise-en-scne that provides the canvas for Sternberg's imagination, the film is neither "a crime thriller, nor a hardboiled noir...'The Docks of New York' is an elegant and elegiac love story [and] the most emotionally affecting film" of Sternberg's career.Baxter, 1971. p. 54: Critic John Baxter call the film "a complex melodrama of moral rebirth..."
A standard melodrama with a "deceptively simple" plot, Sternberg does not dwell upon the social conditions of the working class figures; he is "not concerned with the class consciousness of the characters." Rather than striving to be realistic, Sternberg's photography served to "give visual experience feelings more than facts." Through the combination of camera movement (as opposed to montage) and his mise-en-scne compositions "that closely resemble German expressionist cinema", Sternberg conveys a "deeply felt emotional maturity and raw passion not previously seen on the American screen."Sarris, 1966. p. 22
Muller, 2012.
Blick, 2012.
Silver, 2010
Film critic William Blick reserves special mention for the film's wedding scene:
Critic Andrew Sarris considers the "sewing" scene, with its use of "subjective camera" the key psychological moment of the film:
Accolades
In 1999, 'The Docks of New York' was included in the annual selection of 25 motion pictures added to the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress. being deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" and recommended for preservation.
References
Sources
*Baxter, John. 1971. 'The Cinema of Josef von Sternberg'. The International Film Guide Series. A.S Barners & Company, New York.
*Blick, William. 2012. 'The Docks of New York' The Senses of Cinema: CINMATHQUE ANNOTATIONS ON FILM. Retrieved April 26, 2018. http://sensesofcinema.com/2012/cteq/the-docks-of-new-york/
*Muller, Eddie. 2012. 'The Docks of New York': San Francisco Silent Film Festival, 2012. Retrieved April 26, 2018. http://www.silentfilm.org/archive/the-docks-of-new-york
*Sarris, Andrew. 1966. 'The Films of Josef von Sternberg'. Museum of Modern Art/Doubleday. New York, New York.
*Silver, Charles. 2010. 'Josef von Sternbergs The Docks of New York'. https://www.moma.org/explore/inside_out/2010/05/11/josef-von-sternbergs-the-docks-of-new-york/ Retrieved August 11, 2018.
*Weinberg, Herman G., 1967. 'Josef von Sternberg. A Critical Study'. New York: Dutton.
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