Posted: 06/22/2011

Park Row

by Ruben R. Rosario

Sam Fuller’s Park Row begins with an epic title crawl of 1,772 newspaper titles across America circa 1952 and a dedication to all American journalists. Fuller draws on his own personal experience as youth working at the New York Journal to give us the potent mellow drama that is Park Row. Gene Evans plays Phineas Mitchell, a journalist that has dedicated his life to the pursuit of great news. He meets an investor willing to help him make his newspaper, The Globe, a reality right on the street of Park Row in New York City. Mary Welch plays Charity Hackett, his rival at The Star that uses her newspaper to push her own agenda as opposed to delivering news.

Park Row is fueled by Sam Fuller’s trademarks of characters facing the pursuit of truth in times of injustice. From the cigar chomping Phineas to the humble and wise Mr. Davenport, all the characters are utilized in a wonderful way to keep the story going. There a great scene that defines Phineas through the use of some wonderful sound design when he first walks into the office of The Globe. While hearing the imaginary sounds of the press machine making noise, we get a glimpse of what his hopes and dreams are with The Globe. There’s also some wonderful cinematography by the great Jack Russell, that uses dolly pull-ins, tracking shots and other camera techniques to convey emotion that ooze from these characters.

While only at 82 minutes, the film utilizes every bit of it’s running time to portray the struggle of The Globe against The Star, making headlines and getting news to the American people. It was a very ambitious film for Sam Fuller to make and he used his own money to do it. At a budget of $200,000 of his own money and a 14 day shoot, Sam Fuller made a hell of a movie that failed at the box office and it’s a shame that it never got the recognition it deserved when released.

The film itself is presented in the best video and audio quality from MGM’s archives. The video is really great and defined for most of the film. There’s just a few close up shots that are very grainy and have artifacts all over. The soundtrack was very solid in terms of clarity for a mono mix. Overall, it’s a great release from the MGM Limited Edition Collection and not to be missed by fans of Sam Fuller.

Ruben R. Rosario is a graduate from Columbia College Chicago with a degree in Audio for Visual Media. He works as a freelance location sound mixer, boom operator, sound designer, and writer in his native Chicago. He’s an avid collector of films, comics, and anime.

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