Park Row (1952)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Park Row (1952) – S. Fuller

Clearly a labor of love for director Sam Fuller who financed this NY newspaper story out of his own pocket in order to do it his way.  The result is a punchy gutsy drama that sees an idealist new editor (Gene Evans) of a start-up paper fighting a larger corrupt rag that uses its wide circulation and power maliciously.  The publisher of that other paper (Mary Welch) is wrong-headed but her underlings use real violence to try to smash the smaller new paper.  At the same time, Fuller didactically shows us the mechanics of printing a newspaper and the birth of new technologies and innovations.  Although a case could be made that the cigar-chomping editor is his surrogate, we also know that he was a copy-boy (perhaps a “printer’s devil”) when he was a kid.  Park Row, the street in NYC near The Bowery where newspapers had their offices/presses, is artificially recreated on a studio set where Fuller is able to move the camera around in long tracking shots and nothing “real” distracts from the sense that we are in 1886.  A big part of the story focuses on France’s donation of the Statue of Liberty to America and the newspaper’s involvement in securing donations for the pedestal on Beddoe’s Island.  A gritty slab of history told from the heart.