Sam Fuller's brilliant direction combines a tatty set, low watt cast, and potentially preachy and pedantic script into a small masterpiece...seemingly with the sheer electric passion of his film sense. Superb use of camera takes ordinary talking head shots and makes them off kilter peeks into the clash of opposing souls. The passion filled but low key love/hate/love interplay between opposing editors played by Gene Evans and Mary Welch is one of the most adult and genuine dark romances in cinema history (how sad that this was only major appearance for Welch...who died in 1958). Fuller's lauded tracking shots...including some which seem to have the camera being tossed about like a football in an effort to keep up with the action..are very much in evidence...but film is most striking for it's effortless ability to capture the quiet passion and integrity of one mans devotion to the craft of journalism...a devotion so strong that great love for an unscrupulous competitor was no obstacle...a devotion so great that his insight and passion helped transform the press into the behemoth it is today. Any film that can turn the creation of linotype into a miracle of discovery is a wonder. Check out this 83 minute masterwork...rediscover how alive film can be.
35 Reviews
One of Sam Fuller's best pictures
MOscarbradley28 May 2017
Samuel Fuller was a newspaperman before he was a filmmaker and his passion for journalism and free speech infuses every frame of "Park Row" making this one of his most enjoyable pictures which, for a movie about the printed page, is intensely cinematic. Of course, whether Fuller was a good journalist, a great journalist or even a lousy journalist I can't say but he had one of the great eyes in American cinema and he knew, in movie after movie, how to bombard our senses with a host of images that gave his films, be they westerns, thrillers, war pictures or, in this case, simply a picture about the founding of a newspaper, the feeling they were ripped from today's headlines.
The plot of "Park Row" is relatively thin. Gene Evans is the newspaper man who becomes the editor of a crusading newspaper in opposition to the more powerful paper from which he's just been fired. It is, in other words, a feelgood movie about a David triumphing over a mean old Goliath, (in this case represented by Mary Welch's excellent performance as the owner of the rival paper), but it's a populist picture with none of the sentimentality that Capra would have brought to it. Indeed, being a Sam Fuller picture, there's a fair amount of violence en route to the happy ending. It also has one of Fuller's best scripts; this is a movie full of crisp dialogue that makes great use of factual material. Amazingly, despite it's substantial critical reputation, it's seldom revived. Time, I think, to rectify that.
The plot of "Park Row" is relatively thin. Gene Evans is the newspaper man who becomes the editor of a crusading newspaper in opposition to the more powerful paper from which he's just been fired. It is, in other words, a feelgood movie about a David triumphing over a mean old Goliath, (in this case represented by Mary Welch's excellent performance as the owner of the rival paper), but it's a populist picture with none of the sentimentality that Capra would have brought to it. Indeed, being a Sam Fuller picture, there's a fair amount of violence en route to the happy ending. It also has one of Fuller's best scripts; this is a movie full of crisp dialogue that makes great use of factual material. Amazingly, despite it's substantial critical reputation, it's seldom revived. Time, I think, to rectify that.
If you care about history, this will confuse you
AlsExGal12 December 2021
It's about a 19th century New York City newspaper editorial writer, Phineas Mitchell, who is fired when he insults the owner of the newspaper he works for, The Star. Some of his companions are also fired when they back him up. An older journalist mentions to Mitchell that he has some money - enough to start up a newspaper. And so The Globe is born with the highest journalistic standards of integrity. At first Mitchell's former employer, Charity Hackett, laughs at their efforts. But soon The Globe's innovation and enterprise are threatening her circulation and she tries to shut them down by any means, fair or foul.
This is a completely fictional story, but it incorporates enough truth to be confusing. In the 1880s Park Row was newspaper row in New York City. There was a campaign that looks like crowdfunding today to finance the pedestal for the Statue of Liberty so the monument could be completed. There was an Ottmar Mergenthaler who invented the linotype machine, the first device that could easily and quickly set complete lines of type for use in printing presses. But all of these things did not take place under one roof for one newspaper. The film does have a pretty accurate depiction of newspaper printing as it occurred in the late 1800s, and that is the most interesting aspect of it.
I could deal with the confusion, but then there is the ham fisted romance/ sexual tension between The Star's Charity Hackett and The Globe's Phineas Mitchell. It reminded me of Hill Street Blues' romance between police captain Frank Furillo and public defender Joyce Davenport - If these two people really believe in what they are doing, how could they ever be attracted to one another? But then I am showing my age to explain a 70 year old movie in terms of a 40 year old TV show.
Overall, I'd recommend it. This was a passion project for Sam Fuller as he used his own money to produce it. Just be prepared for it to be a bit of an uneven ride.
This is a completely fictional story, but it incorporates enough truth to be confusing. In the 1880s Park Row was newspaper row in New York City. There was a campaign that looks like crowdfunding today to finance the pedestal for the Statue of Liberty so the monument could be completed. There was an Ottmar Mergenthaler who invented the linotype machine, the first device that could easily and quickly set complete lines of type for use in printing presses. But all of these things did not take place under one roof for one newspaper. The film does have a pretty accurate depiction of newspaper printing as it occurred in the late 1800s, and that is the most interesting aspect of it.
I could deal with the confusion, but then there is the ham fisted romance/ sexual tension between The Star's Charity Hackett and The Globe's Phineas Mitchell. It reminded me of Hill Street Blues' romance between police captain Frank Furillo and public defender Joyce Davenport - If these two people really believe in what they are doing, how could they ever be attracted to one another? But then I am showing my age to explain a 70 year old movie in terms of a 40 year old TV show.
Overall, I'd recommend it. This was a passion project for Sam Fuller as he used his own money to produce it. Just be prepared for it to be a bit of an uneven ride.
An engaging and entertaining tribute to American Journalism
Kalaman19 June 2002
Before becoming a B-movie specialist and one of American cinema's finest filmmakers, Sam Fuller was a journalist who once worked as a crime reporter for The New York Daily Graphic. He made his great pictures in headlines, something more akin to tabloid journalism and sensationalism. "Every newsman is a potential filmmaker", Fuller once said and explicitly used it in "Park Row", an intensely personal work in which he financed with his own money but unfortunately failed miserably when it came out.
"Park Row" is small but an engaging and entertaining tribute to American journalism. Under the opening credits we see a huge rolling title that lists about 2,000 American daily newspapers and this story is dedicated to them.
Set in the 1880s New York, the film is about the rivalry between The Globe and The Star. An aspiring newspaper editor (Gene Evans) sets up his own daily The Globe after a man jumps off the Brooklyn Bridge. He struggles to compete with his former employer's (Mary Welch) newspaper The Star, who happens to be in love with him, while the Statue of Liberty is being donated to the U.S. by France.
Unlike Fuller's bleak and lurid "Shock Corridor", "Park Row" is full of reverential optimism and is packed with so much gusto and excitement, featuring some terrific tracking shots that will make your head spin.
Highly recommended.
"Park Row" is small but an engaging and entertaining tribute to American journalism. Under the opening credits we see a huge rolling title that lists about 2,000 American daily newspapers and this story is dedicated to them.
Set in the 1880s New York, the film is about the rivalry between The Globe and The Star. An aspiring newspaper editor (Gene Evans) sets up his own daily The Globe after a man jumps off the Brooklyn Bridge. He struggles to compete with his former employer's (Mary Welch) newspaper The Star, who happens to be in love with him, while the Statue of Liberty is being donated to the U.S. by France.
Unlike Fuller's bleak and lurid "Shock Corridor", "Park Row" is full of reverential optimism and is packed with so much gusto and excitement, featuring some terrific tracking shots that will make your head spin.
Highly recommended.
Newspaper Wars
bkoganbing13 July 2012
In this day and age where the print media is struggling to survive back in 1886 when this story takes place New York had something like 20 papers all fighting for circulation. A lot of them came and went with great rapidity. Many were backed by the political parties of the day and they sustained them.
Park Row is the street to the east of New York City's City Hall and it only runs three short blocks. But back in 1886 several papers of the tabloid variety had their offices and printing establishments there. This film Park Row is the story of two of them where the feuding got downright personal.
Mary Hackett who is a real queen of mean fires a whole bunch of her staff over editorial policy disagreement including Gene Evans who takes the fired workers and starts his own tabloid. He gets a super big break when George O'Hanlon playing the legendary Steve Brodie makes his famous dive off the Brooklyn Bridge and Evans gets the bead on the story first. After that Hackett fights and fights real dirty. She especially doesn't like the fact that Evans has spurned her.
Samuel Fuller directed this admirable B film with a cast of no real names, but that in itself gives it a realistic look. That look is at an era that is gone, but not forgotten. By the way another look at this same era can be seen in the film Newsies which is currently on Broadway now.
Still without the singing and dancing of Newsies, I think Park Row will give you an idea of what was going on during those times.
Park Row is the street to the east of New York City's City Hall and it only runs three short blocks. But back in 1886 several papers of the tabloid variety had their offices and printing establishments there. This film Park Row is the story of two of them where the feuding got downright personal.
Mary Hackett who is a real queen of mean fires a whole bunch of her staff over editorial policy disagreement including Gene Evans who takes the fired workers and starts his own tabloid. He gets a super big break when George O'Hanlon playing the legendary Steve Brodie makes his famous dive off the Brooklyn Bridge and Evans gets the bead on the story first. After that Hackett fights and fights real dirty. She especially doesn't like the fact that Evans has spurned her.
Samuel Fuller directed this admirable B film with a cast of no real names, but that in itself gives it a realistic look. That look is at an era that is gone, but not forgotten. By the way another look at this same era can be seen in the film Newsies which is currently on Broadway now.
Still without the singing and dancing of Newsies, I think Park Row will give you an idea of what was going on during those times.
imperfect but one of Fuller's finest feats as a director
Quinoa198418 April 2010
Park Row may wear its emotions on its sleeve, for better and on rare occasion for worse (mostly in some sentimental bits involving busts of Benjamin Franklin and others on Park Row, and an ending involving the Statue of Liberty), but it also reveals its filmmaker so personally tapped into its subject that the film transcends its story. It's exhilarating to see director Samuel Fuller working at full capacity, and even with its one or two moments where it could be faulted he still delivers as good as he did with more prestigious films (The Big Red One) or cult classics (Shock Corridor). This was done as an elegy for the days of yore, when people had to find the type-keys to put in so that a printing press could work, writers wrote out everything in longhand (right on the cusp of that newfangled invention the typewriter), and newspapers were tight rivals when one printed facts and the other printed garbage. It's a tough, endearing little gem.
Fuller's concerns here are expressed in the character of Phineas Mitchell, a guy who sits at a bar for years saying "If I had my newspaper I'd do so on and so forth," only to find in 1886 that someone who has been listening to him for so long give him an offer: run a newspaper as editor in chief. Mitchell founds The Globe, dedicated to doing real journalism - or whatever could be made up as news but still be fitting and pure - and with a crack staff of foreigners who can't read (and one of them better not!) and kids and old people, he gets to work. But Fuller's antagonist is a little tricker to put a handle on: Charity Hackett (first name means "She doesn't have any"), who runs the well-circulated The Star and sees The Globe as a direct threat, and puts out an order to her underling to get The Globe dismantled.
As it is Fuller, not without a fight, of course. But seeing how this dynamic of power plays out is really at the heart of the film, about what it means to be a journalist with integrity, and to give it your all - or to slink out of it and take the easy or ruthless route like Hackett. What's fascinating is also how the two of them (as played by Evans and Welch) have a kind of kinetic connection together, as they could at any moment just fall madly in love with one another... which, thankfully, doesn't quite happen in Fuller's hands, though he does acknowledge their twisted admiration for one another as they practically plot each others' murder. Along the way Fuller provides us with some colorful supporting characters, some hard-rocking front page headlines (with drawings!) and some riveting set pieces and cinematography (best is seeing that tracking shot that goes from the bar, following Mitchell outside, into his printing press, a fight ensues, and then some dialog and ending on a close-up - other great scenes show a masterful use of a gliding camera, as if it's flying, in love with this time and atmosphere and the nature of the people and work.
It's also commendable that Fuller even decided to make the 'villain' a woman, and to give her complexity. It would have been an easy route to make this opposing editor a man and make it mano-a-mano, but Fuller's after something else here. I wonder how closely he took it to history, or if he merely wanted to see this power dynamic played out in the year it was set in. It goes without saying he draws from personal experience, as a journalist in his years before being a filmmaker. But he knows such characters so well, the small ones and the major players, that everything feels authentic emotionally even when things get a little sentimental or a little preachy (the way the old guy explains how things work in the printing press to the little kid SPELLS IT OUT in caps like that, which is Fuller's way but a bit much in those short scenes). There's violence, there's passion, there's daring-do and a sense of right and wrong. It's Fuller cinema! 9.5/10
Fuller's concerns here are expressed in the character of Phineas Mitchell, a guy who sits at a bar for years saying "If I had my newspaper I'd do so on and so forth," only to find in 1886 that someone who has been listening to him for so long give him an offer: run a newspaper as editor in chief. Mitchell founds The Globe, dedicated to doing real journalism - or whatever could be made up as news but still be fitting and pure - and with a crack staff of foreigners who can't read (and one of them better not!) and kids and old people, he gets to work. But Fuller's antagonist is a little tricker to put a handle on: Charity Hackett (first name means "She doesn't have any"), who runs the well-circulated The Star and sees The Globe as a direct threat, and puts out an order to her underling to get The Globe dismantled.
As it is Fuller, not without a fight, of course. But seeing how this dynamic of power plays out is really at the heart of the film, about what it means to be a journalist with integrity, and to give it your all - or to slink out of it and take the easy or ruthless route like Hackett. What's fascinating is also how the two of them (as played by Evans and Welch) have a kind of kinetic connection together, as they could at any moment just fall madly in love with one another... which, thankfully, doesn't quite happen in Fuller's hands, though he does acknowledge their twisted admiration for one another as they practically plot each others' murder. Along the way Fuller provides us with some colorful supporting characters, some hard-rocking front page headlines (with drawings!) and some riveting set pieces and cinematography (best is seeing that tracking shot that goes from the bar, following Mitchell outside, into his printing press, a fight ensues, and then some dialog and ending on a close-up - other great scenes show a masterful use of a gliding camera, as if it's flying, in love with this time and atmosphere and the nature of the people and work.
It's also commendable that Fuller even decided to make the 'villain' a woman, and to give her complexity. It would have been an easy route to make this opposing editor a man and make it mano-a-mano, but Fuller's after something else here. I wonder how closely he took it to history, or if he merely wanted to see this power dynamic played out in the year it was set in. It goes without saying he draws from personal experience, as a journalist in his years before being a filmmaker. But he knows such characters so well, the small ones and the major players, that everything feels authentic emotionally even when things get a little sentimental or a little preachy (the way the old guy explains how things work in the printing press to the little kid SPELLS IT OUT in caps like that, which is Fuller's way but a bit much in those short scenes). There's violence, there's passion, there's daring-do and a sense of right and wrong. It's Fuller cinema! 9.5/10
"You're in love with a dead woman, my boy."
Irie2128 September 2009
Sage old reporter Josiah Davenport says this to crusading editor Phineas Mitchell, but writer/director Sam Fuller might have been speaking to himself when he wrote the line. He is clearly pining for the long-dead old days of newspapers in New York-- and with good reason, check http://www.nysl.nysed.gov/nysnp/history.htm for a brief and amazing history.
The IMDb reviewer, st-shot, who called this movie a "valentine" hit the mark. This valentine has a fair amount going for it, but it's more flawed than faithful. A newspaperman himself (ca. 1930), Fuller prided himself on the historical accuracy of "Park Row" and there is truth behind, if not in, many of the people and events alluded to in the screenplay: The base of the Statue of Liberty, which was unveiled in 1886 when the movie takes place, was indeed partly paid for by a newspaper campaign (Joseph Pulitzer's "New York World"). A Bowery bookie named Steve Brodie did claim to have jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge that same year, and survived to both acclaim and controversy. Linotype was indeed invented by German immigrant Ottmar Mergenthaler in 1886, but it wasn't for a Park Row newspaper, it was for lawyers wanting a way to get legal papers printed faster. The young political cartoonist called "Thomas Guest" is obviously a thinly veiled Thomas Nast, who would have been in his mid-40s and very famous by 1886.
Much of that cinematic license can be forgiven, because the problem isn't the lack of historical accuracy; it's Fuller's proud claim that it WAS accurate. Perhaps he was referring to the typesetting and printing processes he shows in such loving detail-- which certainly are fun and fascinating to see.
Then there's the plot, another big problem. Melodrama was Fuller's Achilles' heel (see THE NAKED KISS for Fuller at his lawless heights) and he pours it on rather thickly here-- injured towheaded kid, heroic journalists, rival editor and publisher as the Clark Kent & Lois Lane of 1886. But, while the movie is more frenetic than energetic, there's enough camera movement and odd angles to establish this firmly as a Fuller film, and therefore worth seeing. Once.
The IMDb reviewer, st-shot, who called this movie a "valentine" hit the mark. This valentine has a fair amount going for it, but it's more flawed than faithful. A newspaperman himself (ca. 1930), Fuller prided himself on the historical accuracy of "Park Row" and there is truth behind, if not in, many of the people and events alluded to in the screenplay: The base of the Statue of Liberty, which was unveiled in 1886 when the movie takes place, was indeed partly paid for by a newspaper campaign (Joseph Pulitzer's "New York World"). A Bowery bookie named Steve Brodie did claim to have jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge that same year, and survived to both acclaim and controversy. Linotype was indeed invented by German immigrant Ottmar Mergenthaler in 1886, but it wasn't for a Park Row newspaper, it was for lawyers wanting a way to get legal papers printed faster. The young political cartoonist called "Thomas Guest" is obviously a thinly veiled Thomas Nast, who would have been in his mid-40s and very famous by 1886.
Much of that cinematic license can be forgiven, because the problem isn't the lack of historical accuracy; it's Fuller's proud claim that it WAS accurate. Perhaps he was referring to the typesetting and printing processes he shows in such loving detail-- which certainly are fun and fascinating to see.
Then there's the plot, another big problem. Melodrama was Fuller's Achilles' heel (see THE NAKED KISS for Fuller at his lawless heights) and he pours it on rather thickly here-- injured towheaded kid, heroic journalists, rival editor and publisher as the Clark Kent & Lois Lane of 1886. But, while the movie is more frenetic than energetic, there's enough camera movement and odd angles to establish this firmly as a Fuller film, and therefore worth seeing. Once.
Park Row Gets the Fuller Brush
bobt14521 October 2010
Sam Fuller was a newspaperman in his younger days. This is his love letter to his earlier craft, with a full dose of Fuller filmmaking prowess.
I doubt that Fuller was ever well-budgeted. He made do, and boy did he.
The office of the paper is a tight web of cubicles (that are torn down at one point) that cast dark shadows and patches of light. Fuller allows his camera to capture repeated black and white shadow portraits of the characters, their emotion forming the full frame of a shot.
At other points, the camera tours the tiny den as characters move through it as if it were dancing a marvelous ballet Outside is a square, statues of Benjamin Franklin and Horace Greeley and a narrow street allegedly populated by newspapers.
This is all Fuller has to work with, but he makes it work so that even though your subconscious is saying, well, that doesn't look quite realistic, your movie viewing buys in and ignores the tells, absorbing the essence of the scene. Terrific film craft, more than just cinematography.
Can't argue the storyline is up to the filmmaking, but there are touches that Fuller sprinkles throughout that are marvelous.
The newly found paper buys its paper from the butcher. On the floor is a box of unsorted type. It took me back to junior high school in upstate New York, where for a marking period, we had print shop and learned to sort our type and grab it to compose a line in a hand-held device.
There's Otto Morgenthaler, a character borrowed from history, who actually did invent the linotype machine and first use it at the New York Tribune, which is referred to as a competing paper in the film.
The statue of Benjamin Franklin is still there, at the end of Park Row. At one time, the street held The New York World in the Pulitzer Building, Greeley's New York Tribune, The New York Times at #41, the Mail and Express, the Recorder, the Morning Advertiser, and the only other survivor, The Daily News at #25.
In the story, set in 1880s, AP is referred to. The concentration of papers eventually led to the Associated Press, located on Park Row, but that wasn't until 1900.
In the next decade, the landscape was dramatically altered with the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge. It not only cast its shadow over Park Row, but also caused some of its buildings to be demolished for ramp space to the bridge.
Why were the newspapers all there? Strangely, it's never mentioned in the film. Park Row is right around the corner from City Hall, the NYC Police Headquarters and the financial district. That's a pretty good nexus for news.
This one doesn't pop up very often. If you find it, watch and enjoy.
(My ratings are usually to the next highest star. In this case, about 7.5)
I doubt that Fuller was ever well-budgeted. He made do, and boy did he.
The office of the paper is a tight web of cubicles (that are torn down at one point) that cast dark shadows and patches of light. Fuller allows his camera to capture repeated black and white shadow portraits of the characters, their emotion forming the full frame of a shot.
At other points, the camera tours the tiny den as characters move through it as if it were dancing a marvelous ballet Outside is a square, statues of Benjamin Franklin and Horace Greeley and a narrow street allegedly populated by newspapers.
This is all Fuller has to work with, but he makes it work so that even though your subconscious is saying, well, that doesn't look quite realistic, your movie viewing buys in and ignores the tells, absorbing the essence of the scene. Terrific film craft, more than just cinematography.
Can't argue the storyline is up to the filmmaking, but there are touches that Fuller sprinkles throughout that are marvelous.
The newly found paper buys its paper from the butcher. On the floor is a box of unsorted type. It took me back to junior high school in upstate New York, where for a marking period, we had print shop and learned to sort our type and grab it to compose a line in a hand-held device.
There's Otto Morgenthaler, a character borrowed from history, who actually did invent the linotype machine and first use it at the New York Tribune, which is referred to as a competing paper in the film.
The statue of Benjamin Franklin is still there, at the end of Park Row. At one time, the street held The New York World in the Pulitzer Building, Greeley's New York Tribune, The New York Times at #41, the Mail and Express, the Recorder, the Morning Advertiser, and the only other survivor, The Daily News at #25.
In the story, set in 1880s, AP is referred to. The concentration of papers eventually led to the Associated Press, located on Park Row, but that wasn't until 1900.
In the next decade, the landscape was dramatically altered with the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge. It not only cast its shadow over Park Row, but also caused some of its buildings to be demolished for ramp space to the bridge.
Why were the newspapers all there? Strangely, it's never mentioned in the film. Park Row is right around the corner from City Hall, the NYC Police Headquarters and the financial district. That's a pretty good nexus for news.
This one doesn't pop up very often. If you find it, watch and enjoy.
(My ratings are usually to the next highest star. In this case, about 7.5)
No front-page story, but a nice feature
marcslope8 July 2002
Samuel Fuller showed a certain bravado in writing and directing a ringing tribute to freedom of the press in 1952, near the height of McCarthy hysteria; we could use more like him in 2002, where the meekest mention of separation of church and state brands one as unAmerican. End of speech. Anyway, his is a lively melodrama of 1880s New York journalism, specifically the rivalry between the new, enterprising Globe and the old, corrupt Star, presided over here by a wicked dragon-lady publisher. The cast is no-name, the central romance utterly unconvincing, the history of newspapers absurdly telescoped -- you'd think everything of import in journalism happened in one week in 1886. Still, for an independent B movie, it's impressively elaborate -- the detailed, three-block Park Row set alone makes it worth a look -- and Fuller matches his publisher-protagonist for passion and ingenuity. His dramatic black-and-white cinematography, unusual camera angles, and big effects on a small budget will remind you of the journalistic stretches of "Citizen Kane," even if his dramaturgy doesn't.
A bit uneven but still amazingly good due to how it was made.
planktonrules22 March 2015
Sam Fuller is not a name most folks would recognize. However, to film lovers and critics, he's a famous guy--famous for making really good movies that are without the usual clichés and frills as well as with very low budgets. In the case of "Park Row", for instance, he completely financed the movie with his own money! And, it stars Gene Evans--an ordinary looking guy who starred is several Fuller films.
The story is about a guy who is fired from one New York newspaper and decides to start his own. However, the deck is definitely stacked against him and a tough female newspaper owner seems willing to do anything to see his paper fail--and she takes this competition very personally. At first, she laughs off his attempts to put out a paper. But, when he starts seeing success after success, the competition becomes very dirty. In fact, the ugliness of this fight surprised me...it was THAT tough!
The film has some amazingly good camera-work--with great lighting and composition. It never looks cheap. Additionally, Evans is memorable as a tough guy who not only can out-think but out-punch his competition! His intensity is what makes the film. Overall, despite a few rough moments, it's a great textbook example that a film doesn't have to be expensive or filled with mega-stars to be a very good picture.
The story is about a guy who is fired from one New York newspaper and decides to start his own. However, the deck is definitely stacked against him and a tough female newspaper owner seems willing to do anything to see his paper fail--and she takes this competition very personally. At first, she laughs off his attempts to put out a paper. But, when he starts seeing success after success, the competition becomes very dirty. In fact, the ugliness of this fight surprised me...it was THAT tough!
The film has some amazingly good camera-work--with great lighting and composition. It never looks cheap. Additionally, Evans is memorable as a tough guy who not only can out-think but out-punch his competition! His intensity is what makes the film. Overall, despite a few rough moments, it's a great textbook example that a film doesn't have to be expensive or filled with mega-stars to be a very good picture.
Great concept, but lacking
gbill-7487726 March 2021
Sam Fuller's love letter to American journalism, the right to a free press, and the need to defend that right. I'm all for it, but the story was too canned and heavy-handed for me, and I wish it had had a larger dose of actual investigative journalism, or some nuance. There is quite a bit of talk about the duty of the press to be ethical (e.g. "The press is good or evil according to the character of those who direct it"), a lot of lionizing references to the great newspapermen of the past (Ben Franklin, Horace Greeley, et al), and some interesting bits about the mechanics of printing a newspaper in the 1880's, but the main plot line that has one editor (Gene Evans) trying to raise funds for the base of the Statue of Liberty and the other (Mary Welch) trying to run him out of business doesn't completely hit the mark for why a free press is so important, and it was more melodramatic than interesting. Put another way, it felt very "rah rah" about America and its journalism, but there wasn't a lot of substance to it. The interaction with this rival editor and the eventual resolution of her character were also pretty weak.
An excellent film about rival New York City newspapers in the 1880s
zetes9 July 2002
Its main draw is Sam Fuller's direction he is, without a doubt, one of the most skillful American directors to have ever lived. You have to see some of the brilliant long takes in Park Row to believe them. The flowing shots make the rather brilliant moves in Alfred Hitchcock's Rope look trite (which is no dump on Hitch, mind you; Park Row is just that impressive). Unfortunately, Fuller's screenwriting ability is quite a bit below his directorial prowess. You've got to admire any director who was working in Hollywood at the time and was also able to write his own scripts. There is only the smallest handful of writer/directors at the time. But, man, can Sam Fuller be overbearing at times. Fortunately, the sillier pieces of the script, as well as bad bits of dialogue, fuel the madness of it all in Park Row. I found myself utterly entertained by the larger than life situations and the hamfisted attempts at symbolism. I laughed quite hard at a scene where Phineas Mitchell, the film's protagonist, attacks a hired thug from the rival newspaper and pounds him repeatedly against the statue of Ben Franklin. I also loved the overwrought symbolism of the scene where Phineas hangs the final issue of his paper on a hook labeled `Deaths.' Or how about the ridiculously over-the-top editorial that Davenport writes near the end? And you've just got to love the final scene, with the word `THIRTY' boldly replacing `THE END'. You'll understand what that means if you see the picture. The only piece of the film that should really have been subtracted is the horribly clunky romance; it seems like an afterthought developed to capture a greater number of female moviegoers and it doesn't work a lick. 9/10.
Rock 'em Sock 'em newspaper tale
bob99825 November 2021
Now that print journalism is all but dead, it's wonderful to see this evocation of a vanished world. Imagine the base of the Statue of Liberty being financed by nickels and dimes from working people. Sam Fuller financed this film out of his own savings, and it was a labour of love. Gene Evans plays Phineas Mitchell with a rapid fire delivery that suggests he studied Clark Gable's early films attentively. Mary Welch as the rival paper owner has an almost dreamy air that is in complete contrast to Evans. The clash of styles works well. I'd give it a higher rating if there had not been so much technical talk, and more characterization.
Fuller Valentine with plenty of Hokum
st-shot27 January 2008
When cult auteur writer director Sam Fuller goes soft he goes bad as evidenced here with this sentimental valentine to the newspaper business. Fuller who was a full fledged reporter on a big city daily at the age of 17 makes much of the dialog sound like speeches at a retirement part - full of reverence, praise and hyperbole.
The time and place is 1880 New York City where newspaper wars between competing dailies resort to physical violence and property damage to gain an edge in readership. In some cases they manufacture the news for a headline as editor Phineus Mitchell does when he has someone jump off the Brooklyn Bridge. Mitchell's early success incurs the wrath of The Star an established competitor and its ice cold editor Charity Hackett. There is a war of words between the two that momentarily thaws to allow Phineus to melt the heart of the frigid Charity and take her in a caveman like way( They don't call Sam a "primitive" for nothing ). Then its back to war between the two as people are maimed and offices are bombed. Through out all of this the nobility and dedication of this 19th century Lou Grant and his staff perseveres. Fuller signs off this Hallmark card with a veritable love and kisses by using the word "thirty" (the end of a story in newspaper terminology)in place of the end.
Sam Fuller has made classic films in many genres. War films (Steel Helmet) westerns (40 Guns) and noir (Pick-up on South St.)that hold their own with other recognized classics that had double the budgets. Fuller's in your face, brutal style of conveying his point of view made up for that. He was an expressionistic artist that was in a unique position of annoying both the Left and Right. A lot of the time he worked with a heavy hand-with a meat cleaver in it. Still, he swung it mightily.
Park Row is a nostalgia piece, an overt labor of love that is not a good fit for Fuller's pulpish sensibility. There's some of his powerfully jarring camera work through an indoor, outdoor set that amounts to a TV sound stage and some nice tracking shots around the office and the downright weird presence of the cane carrying dressed in black frigid dominatrix, editor Charity Hacket is Sam at his best but for the most part Park Row is Skid Row.
The time and place is 1880 New York City where newspaper wars between competing dailies resort to physical violence and property damage to gain an edge in readership. In some cases they manufacture the news for a headline as editor Phineus Mitchell does when he has someone jump off the Brooklyn Bridge. Mitchell's early success incurs the wrath of The Star an established competitor and its ice cold editor Charity Hackett. There is a war of words between the two that momentarily thaws to allow Phineus to melt the heart of the frigid Charity and take her in a caveman like way( They don't call Sam a "primitive" for nothing ). Then its back to war between the two as people are maimed and offices are bombed. Through out all of this the nobility and dedication of this 19th century Lou Grant and his staff perseveres. Fuller signs off this Hallmark card with a veritable love and kisses by using the word "thirty" (the end of a story in newspaper terminology)in place of the end.
Sam Fuller has made classic films in many genres. War films (Steel Helmet) westerns (40 Guns) and noir (Pick-up on South St.)that hold their own with other recognized classics that had double the budgets. Fuller's in your face, brutal style of conveying his point of view made up for that. He was an expressionistic artist that was in a unique position of annoying both the Left and Right. A lot of the time he worked with a heavy hand-with a meat cleaver in it. Still, he swung it mightily.
Park Row is a nostalgia piece, an overt labor of love that is not a good fit for Fuller's pulpish sensibility. There's some of his powerfully jarring camera work through an indoor, outdoor set that amounts to a TV sound stage and some nice tracking shots around the office and the downright weird presence of the cane carrying dressed in black frigid dominatrix, editor Charity Hacket is Sam at his best but for the most part Park Row is Skid Row.
An overlooked classic
cereal_1115 July 2002
One of my favorites from Samuel Fuller; a frenzied, kinetic melodrama about journalism in the late 1800's. Although the film is laughably unrealistic at times in it's portrayal of two major newspapers competing for more readers, this is no hindrance to one's enjoyment of the film.
Never did Fuller create a film of such sheer energy and nostalgia. The film's tracking shots and frenetically-edited montages seem to get the most attention, but there are also some great monologues and magnificent performances, particularly from Mary Welch as the head of the "evil" newspaper, The Star, and Gene Evans as the leader of their opposing newspaper, The Globe.
The film has it's moments of campiness, but overall it's one of cinema's overlooked classics.
Never did Fuller create a film of such sheer energy and nostalgia. The film's tracking shots and frenetically-edited montages seem to get the most attention, but there are also some great monologues and magnificent performances, particularly from Mary Welch as the head of the "evil" newspaper, The Star, and Gene Evans as the leader of their opposing newspaper, The Globe.
The film has it's moments of campiness, but overall it's one of cinema's overlooked classics.
Celebrating a late-19th-century newsman trampling his female rival
som19503 July 2002
Sam Fuller's fifth movie (from 1952) "Park Row" is sentimental and misogynist. "War" is not a metaphor in the description "newspaper war" as Fuller portrays publishing in the New York City of the 1880s. Phineas Mitchell (Gene Evans) envisions better ways of doing things, including sponsoring the invention of linotype, inventing newspaper stands, and launching a campaign to raise funds to put up the Statue of Liberty (accepted by Congress without any appropriation for erecting it).
Across the street from his marginal facility for -The Globe- is the established -Star-, published by a ruthless woman misnamed "Charity" but with a fitting last name (Hackett), a Joan Crawford role that was played passionately by newcomer Mary Welch.
An old sidekick of Horace Greeley named Josiah Davenport (Herbert Heyes) encourages Mitchell's innovations and encourages Ms. Hackett to get out of a man's business. After all such antagonism between a man and a woman can only mean they are in love, right?
Although the movie is difficult to get into and is filled with stock characters and hackneyed attitudes, the look of the old-time machinery and Fuller's talent for filming mayhem make an interesting spectacle.
Across the street from his marginal facility for -The Globe- is the established -Star-, published by a ruthless woman misnamed "Charity" but with a fitting last name (Hackett), a Joan Crawford role that was played passionately by newcomer Mary Welch.
An old sidekick of Horace Greeley named Josiah Davenport (Herbert Heyes) encourages Mitchell's innovations and encourages Ms. Hackett to get out of a man's business. After all such antagonism between a man and a woman can only mean they are in love, right?
Although the movie is difficult to get into and is filled with stock characters and hackneyed attitudes, the look of the old-time machinery and Fuller's talent for filming mayhem make an interesting spectacle.
Blood and Ink
richardchatten23 July 2023
Sam Fuller started as a young cub reporter in the 1920s, earning a debt he repaid with 'Park Row' which pays an nostalgic return to the heroic era of journalism in the 1880s, the result being one his mellow and good-humoured films.
Gene Evans is as usual excellent in one of his rare leads as Phineas Mitchell, ably matched by stage actress called Mary Welch who sadly died young in her only film appearance as the delightfully named Charity Hackett, who provides a very formidable adversary.
The film never leaves the studio, but as shot by Jack Russell the use of long graceful takes it maintains a dynamic pace, while the use of the journalistic term 'Thirty' at the film's conclusion to signify 'The End' is a lovely touch.
Gene Evans is as usual excellent in one of his rare leads as Phineas Mitchell, ably matched by stage actress called Mary Welch who sadly died young in her only film appearance as the delightfully named Charity Hackett, who provides a very formidable adversary.
The film never leaves the studio, but as shot by Jack Russell the use of long graceful takes it maintains a dynamic pace, while the use of the journalistic term 'Thirty' at the film's conclusion to signify 'The End' is a lovely touch.
Fairly brutal and dull look at how the newspaper industry got started
nomoons115 January 2013
The first thing I noticed about this one is how similar it looks to Citizen Kane and the Magnificent Ambersons. Obviously the content is different but the "no-name" actors and the period script are pretty similar. Even the similar shots and angles.
A righteous newspaper reporter gets tired of the garbage print his boss/owner puts out in her paper. He doesn't deem it newsworthy and she decides to fire him. Immediately after his local bar fly friends help him in starting a newspaper based on honesty, integrity and real news. The main issue is his former boss, a female, thinks he's wasting his time. As time goes by his small paper is getting more and more press and better stories than hers and she decides it's time to stop it in all the wrong ways.
The brutality of how bad the newspaper wars were back in the late 1800's is quite real in this film . Samuel Fuller pulls no punches showing what it was really like. I won't go into detail but trust me, the lengths they go through to stop his paper is ghastly. I think my main issue with this film is how "idealistic" the lead is in this. It's not real to me. It's almost an ABC after school special on newspaper integrity. The other is the actors themselves. There's only 2 you'll recognize when you see this. First is the lead and second you'll know as the "little fat mayor" from the Andy Griffith Show. After these 2 what you get is a mish mash of performances that were just....well...dull imo. The one very positive I walked away from in this was Samuel Fuller himself. With better actors this could have been a lot better. His directing is stellar. There's a reason why he was respected in the film industry...and despised. He wouldn't give in to Directing just any film. He did whatever he wanted and what subjects he thought important. In this, it's a noble effort but it it wasn't anything special to me.
To me, newspapers or any media type or source only print or spew out news they deem honest and integral to the public. The problem is, most of the time, it's rarely ever accurate...or even true.
A righteous newspaper reporter gets tired of the garbage print his boss/owner puts out in her paper. He doesn't deem it newsworthy and she decides to fire him. Immediately after his local bar fly friends help him in starting a newspaper based on honesty, integrity and real news. The main issue is his former boss, a female, thinks he's wasting his time. As time goes by his small paper is getting more and more press and better stories than hers and she decides it's time to stop it in all the wrong ways.
The brutality of how bad the newspaper wars were back in the late 1800's is quite real in this film . Samuel Fuller pulls no punches showing what it was really like. I won't go into detail but trust me, the lengths they go through to stop his paper is ghastly. I think my main issue with this film is how "idealistic" the lead is in this. It's not real to me. It's almost an ABC after school special on newspaper integrity. The other is the actors themselves. There's only 2 you'll recognize when you see this. First is the lead and second you'll know as the "little fat mayor" from the Andy Griffith Show. After these 2 what you get is a mish mash of performances that were just....well...dull imo. The one very positive I walked away from in this was Samuel Fuller himself. With better actors this could have been a lot better. His directing is stellar. There's a reason why he was respected in the film industry...and despised. He wouldn't give in to Directing just any film. He did whatever he wanted and what subjects he thought important. In this, it's a noble effort but it it wasn't anything special to me.
To me, newspapers or any media type or source only print or spew out news they deem honest and integral to the public. The problem is, most of the time, it's rarely ever accurate...or even true.
Fantastic movie ! So true in many ways !
1969VIETNAM31 October 2021
Being retired as a journalist and an offset pressman this movie really hit home. The early days of Linotype is fascinating ! Gene Evans is at the top of his acting career in this movie. Evans was a decorated WWII veteran, a true American warrior on the battlefield plus in this movie as newspaper editor of The Globe portraying Mr. Mitchell.
"The pleasure of working for an ideal is the pleasure of living...."
theognis-8082123 December 2021
An unabashed message picture about a journalist who publishes a newspaper in accordance with his ideals, with help from a kindly benefactor, by a film writer/director who makes a movie in accordance with his ideals, with no help from the studio which employs him. Well, the studio was right; the film flops at the box office, but not for a lack of commitment or effort. Journalism was a passion for Sam Fuller. (In his home in the Hollywood Hills, which he shared with his wife, Christa, a central treasure was a desk once owned by Mark Twain.) But, ultimately, a passion for filmmaking is what is needed to make a great film. Perhaps he got there with "The Big Red One."
Newspaper Rows
SFTeamNoir27 July 2020
A rousing and inspirational newspaper noir made on a shoestring budget with director Samuel Fuller's own money (which he lost!) and a small name cast. Gene Evans is the principled editor in the Park Row of 1886, whose dream of his own paper to run is fulfilled by a heavy drinking investor at a bar. And Mary Welsh is the strong but ethically challenged editor at the paper that intends to run them into the ground. The dueling editors have a great distaste for each other, despite an undercurrent of building lust. Park Row features great dialogue, fascinating characters, amusingly detailed glimpses of the latest 1880s newsprint technology, the actual moment linotype is invented, some surprisingly violent attacks on the press, and a fundamental message that is as urgent as ever today-democracy dies without a free and active press.
A good watch
torontobjbird12 April 2019
This movie is an excellent metaphor of one man starting a newspaper with pressure from the other newspaper magnate (the Love interest)is a metaphor for the mass mainstream industry how people can sell out morals for big aspirations have this in mind it makes a better watch I suggested it if you don't mind black and white.
Excruciatingly preachy
MidwestMike23 January 2008
When the phrase "written, produced and directed by" appears in a movie's credits, watch out. In some cases, the result is a masterpiece, created by a visionary whose work is undiluted by lesser minds' tinkering. But too often this phrase means you're seeing the narrow-minded indulgence of an unchecked ego. Unfortunately, "Park Row" falls in the latter category. The flimsy plot and improbable romance are just vehicles to carry Fuller's pontifications on the nobility of the journalism profession.
The film is not without its merits. You get an interesting introduction to the mechanics of newspaper publishing and the technical / marketing innovations that characterized the business in the late 19th century. And the camera work is often striking (although like Welles and Scorcese, sometimes it seems the director is just showing off). Maybe the biggest plus of this movie is that it's mercifully short. The sermon is over in 83 minutes, then the preacher lets us go home.
The film is not without its merits. You get an interesting introduction to the mechanics of newspaper publishing and the technical / marketing innovations that characterized the business in the late 19th century. And the camera work is often striking (although like Welles and Scorcese, sometimes it seems the director is just showing off). Maybe the biggest plus of this movie is that it's mercifully short. The sermon is over in 83 minutes, then the preacher lets us go home.
Fuller's labour of love - repetitious, but sometimes dynamic
rick_711 June 2010
Park Row (Samuel Fuller, 1952) – Maverick director and former tabloid hack Sam Fuller made 22 features. This 1952 labour of love remained his favourite: a hymn to the founders of modern American journalism that begins with a long, sentimental speech about the titans of Park Row (America's Fleet Street) and features a great action sequence in which crusading editor Gene Evans repeatedly dashes a low-level gangster's head against a statue of Benjamin Franklin. Nice.
Our story proper begins in that most Fuller-ish of places, a saloon. There, a bunch of hacks on New York's bestselling daily, The Star, spends their evenings swilling booze and exchanging dreams and bitter bon mots. When idealistic reporter Gene Evans takes a break from the bar to nail an epitaph to the grave of an executed man that reads 'Murdered by The Star' – an acerbic bolt of pure fury from Fuller that's among the neatest things he ever did – the 'paper's owner (Mary Welch) marches in, sacking him and his chums on the spot.
So Evans starts up the 'paper he's always dreamt of – The Globe – and cheery, impressionable young buck George O'Hanlon throws himself off the Brooklyn Bridge for a laugh, giving him a first-rate first splash. But Welch doesn't take such competition lying down, especially not from a man she quite fancies, and so begins a circulation war that spills over into resentment, hatred and good old-fashioned violence.
As you would expect, Fuller has a real feel for the material, filling his script with the usual insider terminology and slang. Leaving just enough in his account for some vodka and cigars, the writer-director-producer spent the rest of his savings – some $200,000 accrued making hit war films – on this pet project. Much of the cash went on a fastidiously complete recreation of the Park Row of his memory, including a multitude of four-storey buildings. The film's designers queried his logic, saying the tops of the structures would never be seen on camera. Fuller said he didn't care: "I had to see it all. I had to know everything was there, exact in every detail." The sets are constructed in an ingenious way that allows Fuller's camera to wind his way through the nooks and crannies of the offices, the intensity of the shooting schedule belied by the wealth of innovation behind the camera. The director's crab dolly, a wheeled platform that allowed the camera to move in any direction, aids the spectacular direction, getting us up close and personal during Evans' periodic stomps up and down the titular street, generally looking for someone to thump.
Park Row is a punchy, sometimes dynamic blend of heartfelt sentiment and acerbic cynicism that could only have come from one director. Whilst it occasionally appears over-earnest or self-congratulatory, and has too much repetition across its 80 minutes, it's flavourful and immersive, with a no-name cast that ideally suits its ink-stained universe.
Our story proper begins in that most Fuller-ish of places, a saloon. There, a bunch of hacks on New York's bestselling daily, The Star, spends their evenings swilling booze and exchanging dreams and bitter bon mots. When idealistic reporter Gene Evans takes a break from the bar to nail an epitaph to the grave of an executed man that reads 'Murdered by The Star' – an acerbic bolt of pure fury from Fuller that's among the neatest things he ever did – the 'paper's owner (Mary Welch) marches in, sacking him and his chums on the spot.
So Evans starts up the 'paper he's always dreamt of – The Globe – and cheery, impressionable young buck George O'Hanlon throws himself off the Brooklyn Bridge for a laugh, giving him a first-rate first splash. But Welch doesn't take such competition lying down, especially not from a man she quite fancies, and so begins a circulation war that spills over into resentment, hatred and good old-fashioned violence.
As you would expect, Fuller has a real feel for the material, filling his script with the usual insider terminology and slang. Leaving just enough in his account for some vodka and cigars, the writer-director-producer spent the rest of his savings – some $200,000 accrued making hit war films – on this pet project. Much of the cash went on a fastidiously complete recreation of the Park Row of his memory, including a multitude of four-storey buildings. The film's designers queried his logic, saying the tops of the structures would never be seen on camera. Fuller said he didn't care: "I had to see it all. I had to know everything was there, exact in every detail." The sets are constructed in an ingenious way that allows Fuller's camera to wind his way through the nooks and crannies of the offices, the intensity of the shooting schedule belied by the wealth of innovation behind the camera. The director's crab dolly, a wheeled platform that allowed the camera to move in any direction, aids the spectacular direction, getting us up close and personal during Evans' periodic stomps up and down the titular street, generally looking for someone to thump.
Park Row is a punchy, sometimes dynamic blend of heartfelt sentiment and acerbic cynicism that could only have come from one director. Whilst it occasionally appears over-earnest or self-congratulatory, and has too much repetition across its 80 minutes, it's flavourful and immersive, with a no-name cast that ideally suits its ink-stained universe.
Great Movie... Great message
XweAponX22 January 2008
I don't know if this film is an historic film, it is shot in documentary style, and it plays out like a historical document. We want the things that happen in the film to be historic, it would be nice if the innovations shown in the film came from once source.
Like Martin Scorsese's 'Gangs of New York,' this film depicts New York city in a time of great changes, where the old ways of doing things even helped propel the changes. We even hear references to Plug Uglies, Dead Rabbits, and other NY gangs, and they are used in this film in a positive way (Watch the film to see how)- As a matter of fact Sam Fuller wrote the screenplay for the 1938 treatment of Herbert Asbury's book.
Basically, this film is about Park Row in NY city, and the history of journalism related to that street. Just about every Newspaper Cliché we can think of originated there: Newsboys, News Stands, Large Type Headlines and the eventual use of Linotype.
Each of these innovations had it's own origin, but in this film, director Sam Fuller puts it all in one place: A New Newspaper called The Globe.
Even though I have a background in Printing that includes some Journalism, I learned a lot by watching this film. The way the film moves brings you right into the story, the characters become important, even though they are all character actors. By not casting any familiar faces, Fuller added to the honesty of the film.
The female lead played by Mary Welch is the 1886 version of a Goth Princess. Actually I was sad to see that she had only acted three times, and two of those times were for Television. I like that the film leaves you to make up your own mind about the character.
Another notable is the woman who plays the barmaid who has a special talent for writing on the head of a glass of beer, a talent which comes in handy toward the end of the film.
There are lots of great things in this movie, the tension level rises and falls naturally. The print they showed on TCM just now had lots of digital artifacts- I hope that this was just transmission error and not the quality of the print.
Like Martin Scorsese's 'Gangs of New York,' this film depicts New York city in a time of great changes, where the old ways of doing things even helped propel the changes. We even hear references to Plug Uglies, Dead Rabbits, and other NY gangs, and they are used in this film in a positive way (Watch the film to see how)- As a matter of fact Sam Fuller wrote the screenplay for the 1938 treatment of Herbert Asbury's book.
Basically, this film is about Park Row in NY city, and the history of journalism related to that street. Just about every Newspaper Cliché we can think of originated there: Newsboys, News Stands, Large Type Headlines and the eventual use of Linotype.
Each of these innovations had it's own origin, but in this film, director Sam Fuller puts it all in one place: A New Newspaper called The Globe.
Even though I have a background in Printing that includes some Journalism, I learned a lot by watching this film. The way the film moves brings you right into the story, the characters become important, even though they are all character actors. By not casting any familiar faces, Fuller added to the honesty of the film.
The female lead played by Mary Welch is the 1886 version of a Goth Princess. Actually I was sad to see that she had only acted three times, and two of those times were for Television. I like that the film leaves you to make up your own mind about the character.
Another notable is the woman who plays the barmaid who has a special talent for writing on the head of a glass of beer, a talent which comes in handy toward the end of the film.
There are lots of great things in this movie, the tension level rises and falls naturally. The print they showed on TCM just now had lots of digital artifacts- I hope that this was just transmission error and not the quality of the print.
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