The Big Street
Encyclopedia
The Big Street is a 1942 American drama film, starring Henry Fonda
and Lucille Ball
, based on the short story "Little Pinks" by Damon Runyon
, who also produced the movie. The film was directed by Irving Reis
. The screenplay was written by Leonard Spigelgass
from Runyon's story.
Augustus Pinkerton II (Henry Fonda), known as "Little Pinks," and his relationship with heartless singer Gloria Lyons (Lucille Ball), who is crippled in a fall after her boyfriend, New York City
nightclub owner Case Ables, pushes her down a flight of stairs in a fit of jealousy. Left penniless by the expenses she incurs during a long convalescence, Gloria is forced to rely on the kindness of Pinks, who invites her to stay with him in his apartment.
When Pinks' friend Violette Shumberg marries Nicely Nicely Johnson (Eugene Pallette
) and the couple moves to Florida
, Gloria orders Pinks to take her there to recuperate, and he pushes her to Miami in her wheelchair. There she reunites with an old lover, Decatur, who loses interest in her when he discovers she is an invalid. Angry, she lashes out at Pinks, who leaves her and finds work as a busboy in a club owned by Case, only to return when Violette tells him Gloria is ill.
Despondent, Gloria confesses she longs to spend one last night in a gown bedecked with jewels. When Pinks sees socialite Mimi Venus wearing one, he breaks into her home, where he overhears her being blackmail
ed by one of Case's thugs, who is threatening to publicize her infidelity unless she gives him her jewelry. Pinks disguises himself and retrieves the gems from the thief, then tells Case he will report him to the police unless he agrees to host a party with Gloria as the guest of honor.
On the night of the party, the police arrest Pinks, whose Social Security card was found in Mimi's closet. When her husband Samuel learns why the busboy had broken into their home, he takes pity on him and drops the charges. Gloria finally realizes the sacrifices Pinks made for her, and he lifts her in his arms so they can dance. Gloria tells Pinks she wants to see the ocean, then dies. Undaunted, he carries her up the stairs to fulfill her final request.
and Carole Lombard
in the lead roles, but neither one was interested in the project. Lombard suggested the producer consider her friend Lucille Ball
and, despite pressure to hire a better-known actress, such as Barbara Stanwyck
or Jean Arthur
, from RKO executives, Runyon offered her the role. Ball later recalled that at the time she was cast, "nothing much seemed to be happening for me at the studio. My $1000 weekly paycheck came regularly, but I was still a regular among the Bs
."
Filming did not go smoothly for the actress. Director Irving Reis was a novice, and co-star Henry Fonda
, a former boyfriend on loan from 20th Century Fox
, did not offer her much guidance. Fearing his wife might rekindle her relationship with Fonda, Desi Arnaz
frequently lingered on the set. Despite these obstacles, Ball considered the film her favorite.
The vocals for "Who Knows?" by Harry Revel
and Mort Greene, performed by Gloria in Case's Manhattan
club, were provided by Martha Mears
. The character later reprises the song with Ozzie Nelson
and his orchestra in the Miami nightspot.
Variety
thought screenwriter Leonard Spigelgass did "a neat job of transferring the spirit of the piece to the screen, studding it with typical Runyon humor," and felt Lucille Ball "comes through with high laurels" and Henry Fonda "is at his best."
Time Out London thought the film "captures much of [Runyon's] low-life spirit and colourful vernacular, but occasionally spoils it all by wallowing in unnecessary sentimentality" and added, "Ball, in a rare straight role, is stunning."
on June 19, 2007. It has an audio track in English
with subtitles in English and French
. Bonus features included the animated short The Hep Cat
and the musical short Calling All Girls.
Henry Fonda
Henry Jaynes Fonda was an American film and stage actor.Fonda made his mark early as a Broadway actor. He also appeared in 1938 in plays performed in White Plains, New York, with Joan Tompkins...
and Lucille Ball
Lucille Ball
Lucille Désirée Ball was an American comedian, film, television, stage and radio actress, model, film and television executive, and star of the sitcoms I Love Lucy, The Lucy–Desi Comedy Hour, The Lucy Show, Here's Lucy and Life With Lucy...
, based on the short story "Little Pinks" by Damon Runyon
Damon Runyon
Alfred Damon Runyon was an American newspaperman and writer.He was best known for his short stories celebrating the world of Broadway in New York City that grew out of the Prohibition era. To New Yorkers of his generation, a "Damon Runyon character" evoked a distinctive social type from the...
, who also produced the movie. The film was directed by Irving Reis
Irving Reis
Irving Reis, born May 7, 1906, in New York City – died July 3, 1953, in Woodland Hills, California, was a radio program producer & director, and a film director.Reis was the creator of the experimental anthology program on the radio, Columbia Workshop...
. The screenplay was written by Leonard Spigelgass
Leonard Spigelgass
Leonard Spigelgass was an American film producer and screenwriter.Born in Brooklyn, New York, Spigelgass got his start collaborating on the script for Erich Von Stroheim's Hello, Sister!...
from Runyon's story.
Plot
The film focuses on busboyBusboy
Busser, busboy and busgirl are terms used in the United States for someone who works in the restaurant and catering industry clearing tables, taking dirty dishes to the dishwasher, setting tables and otherwise assisting the waiting staff....
Augustus Pinkerton II (Henry Fonda), known as "Little Pinks," and his relationship with heartless singer Gloria Lyons (Lucille Ball), who is crippled in a fall after her boyfriend, New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
nightclub owner Case Ables, pushes her down a flight of stairs in a fit of jealousy. Left penniless by the expenses she incurs during a long convalescence, Gloria is forced to rely on the kindness of Pinks, who invites her to stay with him in his apartment.
When Pinks' friend Violette Shumberg marries Nicely Nicely Johnson (Eugene Pallette
Eugene Pallette
Eugene William Pallette was an American actor. He appeared in over 240 silent era and sound era motion pictures between 1913 and 1946....
) and the couple moves to Florida
Florida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...
, Gloria orders Pinks to take her there to recuperate, and he pushes her to Miami in her wheelchair. There she reunites with an old lover, Decatur, who loses interest in her when he discovers she is an invalid. Angry, she lashes out at Pinks, who leaves her and finds work as a busboy in a club owned by Case, only to return when Violette tells him Gloria is ill.
Despondent, Gloria confesses she longs to spend one last night in a gown bedecked with jewels. When Pinks sees socialite Mimi Venus wearing one, he breaks into her home, where he overhears her being blackmail
Blackmail
In common usage, blackmail is a crime involving threats to reveal substantially true or false information about a person to the public, a family member, or associates unless a demand is met. It may be defined as coercion involving threats of physical harm, threat of criminal prosecution, or threats...
ed by one of Case's thugs, who is threatening to publicize her infidelity unless she gives him her jewelry. Pinks disguises himself and retrieves the gems from the thief, then tells Case he will report him to the police unless he agrees to host a party with Gloria as the guest of honor.
On the night of the party, the police arrest Pinks, whose Social Security card was found in Mimi's closet. When her husband Samuel learns why the busboy had broken into their home, he takes pity on him and drops the charges. Gloria finally realizes the sacrifices Pinks made for her, and he lifts her in his arms so they can dance. Gloria tells Pinks she wants to see the ocean, then dies. Undaunted, he carries her up the stairs to fulfill her final request.
Production
Damon Runyon originally wanted to cast Charles LaughtonCharles Laughton
Charles Laughton was an English-American stage and film actor, screenwriter, producer and director.-Early life and career:...
and Carole Lombard
Carole Lombard
Carole Lombard was an American actress. She was particularly noted for her comedic roles in the screwball comedies of the 1930s...
in the lead roles, but neither one was interested in the project. Lombard suggested the producer consider her friend Lucille Ball
Lucille Ball
Lucille Désirée Ball was an American comedian, film, television, stage and radio actress, model, film and television executive, and star of the sitcoms I Love Lucy, The Lucy–Desi Comedy Hour, The Lucy Show, Here's Lucy and Life With Lucy...
and, despite pressure to hire a better-known actress, such as Barbara Stanwyck
Barbara Stanwyck
Barbara Stanwyck was an American actress. She was a film and television star, known during her 60-year career as a consummate and versatile professional with a strong screen presence, and a favorite of directors including Cecil B. DeMille, Fritz Lang and Frank Capra...
or Jean Arthur
Jean Arthur
Jean Arthur was an American actress and a major film star of the 1930s and 1940s. She remains arguably the epitome of the female screwball comedy actress. As James Harvey wrote in his recounting of the era, "No one was more closely identified with the screwball comedy than Jean Arthur...
, from RKO executives, Runyon offered her the role. Ball later recalled that at the time she was cast, "nothing much seemed to be happening for me at the studio. My $1000 weekly paycheck came regularly, but I was still a regular among the Bs
B movie
A B movie is a low-budget commercial motion picture that is not definitively an arthouse or pornographic film. In its original usage, during the Golden Age of Hollywood, the term more precisely identified a film intended for distribution as the less-publicized, bottom half of a double feature....
."
Filming did not go smoothly for the actress. Director Irving Reis was a novice, and co-star Henry Fonda
Henry Fonda
Henry Jaynes Fonda was an American film and stage actor.Fonda made his mark early as a Broadway actor. He also appeared in 1938 in plays performed in White Plains, New York, with Joan Tompkins...
, a former boyfriend on loan from 20th Century Fox
20th Century Fox
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation — also known as 20th Century Fox, or simply 20th or Fox — is one of the six major American film studios...
, did not offer her much guidance. Fearing his wife might rekindle her relationship with Fonda, Desi Arnaz
Desi Arnaz
Desi Arnaz was a Cuban-born American musician, actor and television producer. While he gained international renown for leading a Latin music band, the Desi Arnaz Orchestra, he is probably best known for his role as Ricky Ricardo on the American TV series I Love Lucy, starring with Lucille Ball, to...
frequently lingered on the set. Despite these obstacles, Ball considered the film her favorite.
The vocals for "Who Knows?" by Harry Revel
Harry Revel
Harry Revel was an English composer of musical theatre.Revel was born in London. Before emigrating to the United States in 1929, he wrote musicals for productions in Paris, Copenhagen, Vienna and London....
and Mort Greene, performed by Gloria in Case's Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
club, were provided by Martha Mears
Martha Mears
Martha Mears Martha Mears was the female singing voice in the renditions of "White Christmas" in the movie Holiday Inn , and for two of Lucille Ball's songs in the MGM musical version of DuBarry Was a Lady...
. The character later reprises the song with Ozzie Nelson
Ozzie Nelson
Oswald George "Ozzie" Nelson was an American entertainer and band leader who originated and starred in The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet radio and television series with his wife and two sons.-Early life:...
and his orchestra in the Miami nightspot.
Cast
- Henry FondaHenry FondaHenry Jaynes Fonda was an American film and stage actor.Fonda made his mark early as a Broadway actor. He also appeared in 1938 in plays performed in White Plains, New York, with Joan Tompkins...
..... Little Pinks - Lucille BallLucille BallLucille Désirée Ball was an American comedian, film, television, stage and radio actress, model, film and television executive, and star of the sitcoms I Love Lucy, The Lucy–Desi Comedy Hour, The Lucy Show, Here's Lucy and Life With Lucy...
..... Gloria Lyons - Barton MacLaneBarton MacLaneBarton MacLane was an American actor, playwright, and screenwriter. Although he has appeared in many classic films from the 1930s through the 1960s, he was known for his role as Gen...
..... Case Ables - Eugene PalletteEugene PalletteEugene William Pallette was an American actor. He appeared in over 240 silent era and sound era motion pictures between 1913 and 1946....
..... Nicely Nicely Johnson - Agnes MooreheadAgnes MooreheadAgnes Robertson Moorehead was an American actress. Although she began with the Mercury Theatre, appeared in more than seventy films beginning with Citizen Kane and on dozens of television shows during a career that spanned more than thirty years, Moorehead is most widely known to modern audiences...
..... Violette Shumberg - Marion MartinMarion MartinMarion Martin was an American movie and stage actress.Martin was born, Marion Suplee in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the daughter of a Bethlehem Steel executive. She became an actress after her family fortune was lost in the Wall Street Crash of 1929 and appeared in the Broadway productions...
..... Mimi Venus - George ClevelandGeorge ClevelandGeorge Alan Cleveland was a Canadian film actor. He appeared in over 180 films between 1933 and 1954.-Career:...
..... Colonel Samuel Venus - William T. OrrWilliam T. OrrWilliam T. Orr was an American television producer associated with a series of western and detective programs of the 1950s-1970s....
..... Decatur Reed
Critical reception
The film critic for the New York Times called the film "smartly paced and colorful" and "crisply directed" but thought "in deviating occasionally from the plot's general comedy lines, the film over-dramatizes some none too plausible situations with an effect which is sometimes maudlin." He noted Henry Fonda "makes an acutely sympathetic hero opposite Miss Ball's able portrayal of the singer."Variety
Variety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...
thought screenwriter Leonard Spigelgass did "a neat job of transferring the spirit of the piece to the screen, studding it with typical Runyon humor," and felt Lucille Ball "comes through with high laurels" and Henry Fonda "is at his best."
Time Out London thought the film "captures much of [Runyon's] low-life spirit and colourful vernacular, but occasionally spoils it all by wallowing in unnecessary sentimentality" and added, "Ball, in a rare straight role, is stunning."
DVD release
Turner Home Entertainment released the film on Region 1 DVDDVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
on June 19, 2007. It has an audio track in English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
with subtitles in English and French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
. Bonus features included the animated short The Hep Cat
The Hep Cat
The Hep Cat is a 1942 Warner Bros. cartoon directed by Bob Clampett, written by Warren Foster, animated primarily by Robert McKimson, and set to a musical score composed by Carl Stalling. This cartoon is notable as the first color Looney Tunes short, but was re-released in the "Blue Ribbon...
and the musical short Calling All Girls.