On the Bowery
| On the Bowery | |
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Film poster
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| Directed by | Lionel Rogosin |
| Produced by | Lionel Rogosin |
| Written by | Mark Sufrin (uncredited) |
| Starring | Gorman Hendricks, Frank Matthews, Ray Salyer |
| Music by | Charles Mills |
| Cinematography | Richard Bagley (uncredited) |
| Edited by | Carl Lerner |
| Distributed by | Milestone Films |
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Release date
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Running time
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65 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
On the Bowery is a 1956 American docufiction film directed by Lionel Rogosin. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.
After the Second World War Lionel Rogosin made a vow to fight fascism and racism wherever he found it. In 1954 he left the family business (Beaunit Mills-American Rayon Corp.) in order to make films in accordance with his ideals. As he needed experience, he looked around for a subject and was struck by the men on the Bowery and decided that this would make a strong film. Thus On the Bowery was to be Rogosin's provocative film school that would prepare him for the filming of his anti-apartheid film: Come Back, Africa (1960).
In 2008, On the Bowery was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
The film chronicles three desperate days in a then impoverished lower Manhattan neighborhood, New York's skid row: the Bowery. It is the story of Ray (Ray Salyer), a railroad worker, who drifts on to the Bowery to have a drunken spree after a long bout of laying tracks and then falls in with a band of drunks who help him spend his money.
Ray, the "new guy on the Bowery," whose biceps still fill out his sleeves, looks preoccupied as he enters the "Confidence Bar & Grill". Surrounded by various alcoholics in advanced states of decay, he buys them rounds of drinks, then blacks out on his first night, and wakes up to discover that his suitcase has been stolen.
The thief (Gorman Hendricks) becomes the closest thing he has to a friend...and just like that, Ray embarks on a trip to hell, becoming part of the Bowery. In a series of Beckettian portraits, the protagonists, congregations of winos, listless listeners, blubber through numerous bar scenes, games of dominos around a flophouse stove, and a sermon at the Bowery Mission.
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Wikipedia