The Big Street is one of those sentimental little yarns blown up from the whimsical attractiveness of print to the harsher light of the cinema screen. It is the sort of story that Damon Runyon excels in - and here he is producing it for the screen himself! Alas, the principal pleasure in reading his stories is his very characteristic literary style - a tongue-in-cheek amalgam of East Side slang and back of Broadway jargon - that is extremely difficult to transfer to the screen without losing the bite and humor that is an essential ingredient of its flavor. One-dimensional characters which seem so amusing on the printed page are also much less appealing on the screen unless the players can achieve exactly the right balance between fancy and reality.
This adaptation is only moderately successful. The direction is routine and production values are very moderate. A lot of obvious process work doesn't really help either. On the other hand, Russell Metty's lighting photography is so polished and atmospheric and the sets and costumes are so attractive as to overshadow the lack of craftsmanship in other departments. Furthermore, the cast is outstanding. True, some of the more interesting players like Eugene Pallette, Agnes Moorehead and Barton MacLane have only small parts, but Henry Fonda and Lucille Ball make a worthy team. Fonda manages to bring absolute conviction and sincerity to the incredibly naive and almost impossibly devoted Little Pinks. As for Lucille Ball, she herself and many critics regard her characterization of the willful and conceited Gloria as her finest screen performance.
N.B. Similarity of the plot and principal characters to those of Midnight Cowboy (1969) should not go unnoticed. Miss Ball's singing voice was dubbed by Martha Mears.
This adaptation is only moderately successful. The direction is routine and production values are very moderate. A lot of obvious process work doesn't really help either. On the other hand, Russell Metty's lighting photography is so polished and atmospheric and the sets and costumes are so attractive as to overshadow the lack of craftsmanship in other departments. Furthermore, the cast is outstanding. True, some of the more interesting players like Eugene Pallette, Agnes Moorehead and Barton MacLane have only small parts, but Henry Fonda and Lucille Ball make a worthy team. Fonda manages to bring absolute conviction and sincerity to the incredibly naive and almost impossibly devoted Little Pinks. As for Lucille Ball, she herself and many critics regard her characterization of the willful and conceited Gloria as her finest screen performance.
N.B. Similarity of the plot and principal characters to those of Midnight Cowboy (1969) should not go unnoticed. Miss Ball's singing voice was dubbed by Martha Mears.