SIDE STREET (RKO Radio, 1929), written and directed by Malcolm St. Clair, is an early talkie starring natural Irish brothers playing fictional Irish siblings. Starring the Moore Brothers (not the Marx Brothers) featuring Tom, Owen and Matt, it's a dramatic story filmed like a stage play set in apartments with limited intercut street scenes and no underscoring, not even during the opening and closing credits. In spite of these handicaps for anyone accustomed for more improved methods found through the development in latter sound movies, SIDE STREET is something to consider for what it has to offer: all dialogue, a dancing sequence performed by the uncredited future star actor by the name of George Raft.
Set in New York City, the plot development begins in the apartment of the O'Farrell family: Mr. O'Farrell (Frank Sheridan), retired police officer with wife, Nora (Emma Dunn), devoted mother of three grown sons: Jimmy (Tom Moore), a policeman; John (Matt Moore), educated in medical school with the help of his older brother, Dennis (Owen Moore), a piano player and businessman by profession. With Jimmy discussing with his father about gangland killings headed by mobster Barney Muller, a shooting occurs during their dinner gathering outside their building. Jim Burke, a friend of the family is identified and believed to be the murder victim by the Muller mob. Engaged to Kathleen Doyle (Kathryn Perry), Jimmy finally gets his promotion to plainclothesman detective with his first assignment being the investigation on the Muller case. As Kathleen returns home with her friend Bunny (Mildred Harris), they are invited by Max Kimball (Charles Byer) to attend a Park Avenue cocktail party. While here, Kathleen not only meets up with the notorious Barney Muller, so does John arriving on ambulance duty to take in Pinky (Dan Wolheim), an injured guest with skull fracture to the hospital. For reasons of their own, both decide to keep Muller's identity a secret from Jimmy.
Other members in the cast include Arthur Housman, Walter McNamara, Al Hill, Heinie Conklin and Raymond Turner. Aside from the story coming to life with the presence of then unknown George Raft (as Georgie Ames), there's nice vocalization by June Clyde (as Judy) with chorus girls dancing to "Take a Look at Her Now." Aside from George Raft's solo dancing in the best George Raft style, he does have some spoken dialogue in the story as well set during the cocktail party sequence. How fortunate SIDE STREET has survived intact all these years or else it would have never been known that George Raft ever appeared in this virtually unknown production.
With the careers of the three Moore brothers dating back to the earliest days of the silent era, their transition to talkies were well established, but by 1929 they were no longer popular individual leading men as they were back decades ago.
Probably due to primitive production style of spoken dialogue echoes and lack of marquee names by today's standards have limited SIDE STREET from ever being televised. Regardless of its age, SIDE STREET does have some interesting touches found in early talkies, namely an individual scene where two brothers are conversing while the other is on telephone in the background, hearing all three voices talking over one another, making it evident that talkies are here to stay.
Never distributed on video cassette nor DVD format, SIDE STREET did have some limited cable television broadcasts over the years: American Movie Classics (1988-1991) and Turner Classic Movies. Story material might have proved beneficial had SIDE STREET been remade as a second feature in the late thirties possibly casting Preston Foster in the lead, with better film-making technology and pacing that would have improved over its original. As it stands now, this is the one and only. (**1/2)
