CRIMSON PLAYGOER

Skoits, inelegant in the fetid atmosphere of a saloon, but still skoits. Chinamen burn while Chuck Connors' mob fights Steve Brodie's gang for possession of the fire hydrant--an especially humorous scene since we have as a background to this massacre a delightful picture of good-natured Swipes throwing a brick through a window, upsetting a kerosene lamp. Crowds throng the banks of the East River near the Brooklyn Bridge, small boats loaded with inebriated gamblers drift in a semi-circle.

Wallace Beery and George Raft put a little more life into their parts than was actually there and were ably cast as the leaders of the Bowery in its glamorous era. Naturally it was necessary to show what happened to a girl from Albany in the wicked city. Fay Wray is the charming victim, and although she is in constant company with Steve and Chuck, she retains her simple, sweet, and virtuous habits to the very end. A superior "poof" from Mr. Walsh, the director, should help much in making other directors pay less attention to environment in the future. I heartily recommend "The Bowery" with the exception of the last five minutes which seemed superfluous; it gives a lively picture of the slums of New York in the nineties. May Hollywood try the "Barbary Coast, next which was equally colorful.