William K. Howard, one of the most visually imaginative (now neglected) directors of the ‘30s, got off to a slow All-Talking Picture start with this Fox Movietone Feature from 1929. Like many Early Talkies, it takes some trouble to begin with a flashy mobile camera shot (very effectively roaming the streets of a bustling NYC set), before shutting down as if filming a stage play from a good seat in the orchestra. (And this was on B’way, barely, one performance in 1926; one more in 1928.) After murdering a bad guy who ‘deserved to die,’ our killer gives himself up to the police, but refuses to say why he did it or who he is. Meanwhile . . . out in the MidWest, a frail old mother sees his pic in the paper and wonders if this mystery man could be her long lost son. And while it’s easy to guess all the mother/son/sibling action, the script maintains absolute silence on the who, what, why of the murder. An unusually abstract tack, then or now. The other point of interest is recently renamed stage actor Muni Wisenfrend, now Paul Muni. Oscar nom’d for this debut, he’s strikingly more naturalistic, less elocutionarily careful than anyone else up there. Yards ahead of the curve; something of a reverse from later work when he’d become more self-consciously theatrical than his co-players, especially once he landed at streetwise home studio Warner Bros. Best for geeks of Early Talkie evolutionary trends.
DOUBLE-BILL: Howard would need another couple of steps before revealing his natural gifts in the new format. Next year’s SCOTLAND YARD manages to top-and–tail with imaginatively visualized scenes: a opening float down the river Thames; a climax rendered in a series of close-ups on inanimate details. His real technical breakthru came with TRANSATLANTIC/’31 which is really something to see.
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