Side Streets (1934) User Reviews

A Popeye with a roving eye walks the precode streets of San Francisco

[AlsExGal · 8/10 · 3 May 2013]

This is a sentimental favorite of mine with an actress - Aline McMahon - that was usually linked with supporting comedic roles in a rare lead appearance in a drama. But wow, just wow, could she tug your heart strings when you gave her a chance. Watch this film and "Heat Lightning" to know what I'm talking about.

Aline McMahon is Bertha, a "side street" furrier. She's not one of the big outfits so she has to be cagey and good with the customers to make a respectable but not great living, and she does. She meets a down and out sailor, Tim (Paul Kelly). She's lonely, he needs room and board, she offers him a job, he takes it. It isn't long before it's obvious he's just milking the situation and doing as little as possible to earn his keep, probably sensing Bertha's loneliness will keep a roof over his head. He strengthens his position even more when he marries her. Now Bertha is being made out to be "a spinster", even though she looks all of 35 and has a very natural beauty if you ask me. All of this dialogue about her being a plain Jane perplexes me. She's a woman alone in the world who is busy trying to keep a business afloat and doesn't have time to dress up in her own fancy merchandise.

After marriage, Tim is kind enough to Bertha, but a new sweetie soon has his eye in the person of Marguerite (Ann Dvorak). He's thinking about heading back out to sea but then he finds a bill for an obstetrician visit among Bertha's things and suddenly becomes a changed man. He makes as close to a confession to Bertha as you'd ever get of a slicky boy like Tim, and Bertha says she's known all along and forgives him. Tim breaks it off with Marguerite, determined to turn over a new leaf, but there's one thing with Marguerite he can't break off.

I'll let you watch and see how this all works out. This film really gives you a feeling of how the long-term lowered expectations of the average man and woman on the street during the Great Depression affected their behavior. Men and women unable to get work attaching themselves to one of the opposite sex that was financially OK just for survival, some of the wealthier people taking advantage of the situation, what happened to cast-off women in cases when the wealthy man didn't want them anymore. Highly recommended.

Well Done Melodrama...

[xerses13 · 8/10 · 9 August 2011]

SIDE STREETS (1934) comes in at the edge before the Hollywood Production 'Code' put the brakes on sexual situations and film creativity. Only Cecil B. DeMille continued to get away with it, wrapping his films in either pseudo patriotic or religious fervor.

This quick told story (63") is about a Women (Aline MacMahon) yearning for love and companionship. Finding it in a Man (Paul Kelly) a failure at his chosen profession as a seaman, who has a wandering eye, but in the end learns the importance of what his Wife has to offer. The film addresses frankly the problems of marriage, loss (their Baby dies) and adultery. In one scene, obviously pre-code, Kelly and MacMahon are shown in the same bed together under the covers. A real 'No-No' back then! MacMahon in several scenes shows a sensitivity that is heart-breaking.

Both Kelly and MacMahon would have long film careers as well as making their mark on the Broadway Stage. They make a attractive and believable couple, nothing phony here. The rest of the supporting cast is effective. Particularly Ann Dvorak, one of Kelly's dalliances. This attractive, slim Actress is barely known today and most of her films are unseen. Take advantage of her when you can, especially her pre-code films, they are well worth watching!

Sides Streets offers decent short cut.

[st-shot · 7/10 · 25 May 2013]

Supporting mainstay Aline McMahon gives a moving performance in the lead in this brief melancholy drama about a spinster furrier and her rocky relationship with a sailor in San Francisco. Just over an hour in length it has more than its share of melodramatic moments that McMahon reigns over with a quiet restrained dignity that infects the entire film.

Down and out Paul (Paul Kelly) crosses paths with Bertha at the zoo when he attempts to steal some peanuts she is feeding to the monkeys. Non-plussed by it all she saves him from being pinched and takes him in to help with the fur business she runs. Eventually they marry and have a child but Paul's wandering eye threatens to bring to an end.

Whether dealing with the business or the obstacles of her marriage Bertha displays a kind of weary resignation to all that befalls her. McMahon conveys this beautifully with sad eyed stoicism and without hysteria creating scenes of great power with less being more while Kelly, Dorothy Tree, Ann Dvorak and Helen Lowell offer strong counterpoint to her.

Alfred Green's direction takes the same unromantic view (before softening up a touch at the conclusion) as he did in Stanwyck's Baby Face with both coarse and cynical characters and situations evoking both the period and pre-code freedom. It also has the same rapid pace as well making it worth the brief time it requires to watch.

Only one actress in the world could make this work, and she does

[marcslope · 7/10 · 13 May 2013]

Aline MacMahon, a Warners contract player not attractive enough for conventional stardom, was perfection in everything she did. Here she elevates a somewhat moldy soap opera and makes you understand, care for, and weep for a powerful woman plunged into unfamiliar waters by love. By happenstance she meets a down-on-his-luck sailor (Paul Kelly) who's a big hunk of trouble, and soon they're married, to the consternation of furrier MacMahon's one employee. It's hard to root for such a jerk as the Kelly character, but the screenwriters do drop in sympathetic moments to present a conflicted, somewhat Billy Bigelow-ish lout, transformed by fatherhood into responsibility but still with a roving eye and a gift for deceit. It takes Kelly's out-of-wedlock child, fathered with pretty Ann Dvorak, to bring this to its unlikely happy ending. But MacMahon is so mesmerizing--I don't know of any other actress who uses her eyes the way she does--that you root for them both and hope they'll live happily ever after.

A pre-code drama with a moral lesson.

[mark.waltz · 6/10 · 2 May 2001]

Hollywood movies rarely focus on character who are, in the world's eyes,less that beautifully stunning. Aline MacMahon as the heroine here is anything but a beauty in the traditional sense. Paul Kelly is a man's man here, a ship's crew member down on his luck because of his irresponsibility working on cargo ships. Unable to get a job, Kelly spots MacMahon feeding animals in the zoo. She takes sympathy on him when she realizes his plight, and offers him a place to stay. Grateful to her but not interested in her, he nevertheless manipulates her into marrying him in order to secure a place to stay and have a good meal.

Obviously involved with other women, Kelly begins to realize his responsibility when he learns that she's pregnant with his child. Of course, circumstances arise which threaten her happiness and make him look at the type of human being he has become.

The moral lesson of this rather short but interesting drama is that a person's beauty is not judged by their looks, but by the actions from their heart. Kelly, as the selfish sailor, uses the lonely MacMahon to get what he wants. In the process, he has to face his own conscience as he deals with physically beautiful women with hearts of stone. To her character's credit, MacMahon does not make her unbelievably perfect, either; as the owner of a fur shop, she takes obvious pleasure in overcharging the wealthy older men who buy furs for their greedy mistresses. She also deals with a seemingly sweet niece (Ann Dvorak) who takes an interest in Kelly. The writers go out of their way to show the shallowness of the beautiful women MacMahon encounters in her shop, one of whom includes Humphrey Bogart's third wife, Mayo Mathot. These women have no qualms about destroying MacMahon's happiness to get what they want-and what they want is her man!

Kelly plays his character as totally believable. A scoundral who has flashes of morals, he is not one dimensional or unbelievable. The lessons he will have to learn lead to a tearful conclusion. "Side Street", thankfully available through occasional screenings on TCM, is a drama which is thought-provoking as well as entertaining. MacMahon, one of Warner Brother's best actresses of the 30's, is heartbreakingly unforgettable.

probably my least favorite profession, right up there with clubbing baby seals

[blanche-2 · 6/10 · 12 November 2015]

Two of my favorite underrated actresses, Aline MacMahon and Ann Dvorak, star with Paul Kelly in "Side Streets," from 1934, right on the edge of the code ending.

MacMahon plays Bertha, a hard-working furrier who takes pity on a sailor, Tim O'Hara (Kelly) whose reputation keeps him from finding work. She feeds him, gives him a place to stay, hires him to make deliveries for her company, and winds up married to him. He seems like a good guy, but we soon find out he is cheating on her with another woman, Marguerite (Dvorak).

Bertha becomes pregnant, and Tim adores the baby and helps care for him. Sadly, the baby dies. Bertha goes on, but she is devastated, as is he. Later he takes up with a coworker. Unbeknownst to him, Marguerite has had his child, and Bertha is helping her with the bills.

MacMahon was such a wonderful actress, pushed into character roles because she wasn't a beauty. Here, she's called "old" by a rival for Tim's affections, and Tim wanted someone young like himself; MacMahon and Kelly were both 35.

Dvorak, young and pretty, was a sparkling presence at Warners. She never liked her roles, married a Brit, worked for the British war effort, and retired in 1952.

Both actresses deserved to have much better careers.

This is a routine film but a nice story really brought to life by the acting. I highly recommend any film with either woman, and it's a special treat to have both in one movie.

Watch it for MacMahon.

[twhiteson · 7/10 · 4 October 2019]

Pre-Code film about relationships.

The plot: "plain" and middle-aged spinster "Bertha Krasnoff" (Aline MacMahon) is instantly smitten by ruggedly handsome merchant marine sailor "Tim O'Hara" (Paul Kelly). Thinking she doesn't have much to offer in the looks department, she woos the unemployed and irresponsible O'Hara with: food, shelter, whiskey, employment at her small "side street" furrier, and eventually a place in her bed. That all leads to marriage. Yet, O'Hara longs for a return to the sea and also cannot resist the temptations of younger, prettier women like "Marguerite" (Ann Dvorak) and his wife's niece (Dorothy Tree). Can Bertha hold onto him? (And why would she want to?)

Like many films "Side Streets" requires a healthy dose of a suspension of disbelief. Having the rather striking looking MacMahon playing an "undesirable" old maid is rather silly. Also, silly is that three extremely attractive women would fall for the penniless, unambitious, philandering, and not very bright O'Hara. What did they see in HIM?!?! The weakest point of the film is it does a poor job of explaining why Bertha would sacrifice her dignity for this dumb lug who is beneath her.

Still, the movie is interesting mainly due to MacMahon's performance. A hard-working business owner with a good heart and a sense of justice. She'll let payments for a fur coat slide for a hard-up working girl, but won't bat an eye gouging an unfaithful husband who lavishes such gifts upon a mistress and then claims poverty to his wife. She also deeply loves O'Hara despite knowing about his betrayals and how much they hurt her. How MacMahon portrays her character's emotional turmoil with little dialogue is the best part of the film.

Plus, the pre-Code aspects are always interesting. This film's frank portrayals of premarital sex in which females pursue it, matter-of-fact infidelities, an out-of-wedlock birth, and married couples actually sharing the same bed are all things that would be either drastically toned down or disappear almost entirely from films and TV for the next thirty years.

Marriage on the side

[TheLittleSongbird · 7/10 · 28 April 2020]

There was a good deal that attracted me into seeing 'A Woman in Her Thirties'. Aline MacMahon and Ann Dvorak were usually seen in scene stealing supporting roles, and it was interesting to see how MacMahon would do as the lead. The subject sounded interesting, like with quite a lot of pre-code films that take on quite daring for the time subjects. Alfred E. Green did a fair share of solid films and this was the sort of film he did well.

'A Woman in Her Thirties', known in some places too as 'Side Streets', falls short of being a great film and is less than perfect. There is however much to recommend it, it does well on the most part with its subject and it shows that MacMahon could work incredibly well in a lead role. It is also much better than the slightly simplistic title suggests. So 'A Woman in Her Thirties' is a pretty good film on the most part, although with a few big short-comings that stop it from living up to its full potential which is somewhat a shame.

Like a good deal of pre-code films at the time, 'A Woman in Her Thirties' can be pretty over-heated dramatically, the sentiment sometimes getting a bit much. Am also really not a fan of endings that jar mood wise with the rest of their respective films and come over as too pat, and that is the case here.

While a good job actually is mostly done with the story, there are contrivances here and there that happen too conveniently and a little on the silly side.

So much to like about 'A Woman in Her Thirties' though. The settings and costumes are sumptuous and the photography having a nice yet intimate style to it. The music avoids being over-bearing or saccharine while enough enough presence. Green directs at a lively enough pace so the story doesn't feel too pedestrian.

Much of the script is intelligently written and takes the subject seriously without being too heavy or over-serious. The story has content that few films would have dared to touch, let alone portray, back in those days. Really appreciated the daring subject and how the film handled it in a take no prisoners manner instead of trivialising. The characters on paper sound pretty unlikeable but the actors do a sterling job bringing enough to them that makes them investable just about. Dvorak is charming and Paul Kelly makes it easy to understand what his appeal is while also hating his character for the way he treats Bertha, he is a long way from being treated in a one-sided way. The acting honours though go to MacMahon, who is both dignified and moving and allows one to feel for Bertha.

Overall, not great but pretty good and worth seeing for primarily the performances. 7/10

MUST SEE FOR ALINE MACMAHON FANS

[JLRMovieReviews · 9/10 · 11 October 2021]

Aline MacMahon, Ann Dvorak and Paul Kelly star in this largely forgotten little gem. Aline works in the fur business and Paul Kelly is a drifter who looks for work on ships but whose undependable reputation keeps him from being hired. A hungry Paul Kelly is fortunate to meet up with Aline MacMahon, who takes him in and feeds him. Things progress as usual in this short drama, but the performances of all really make up for any flaws the film may have, especially Aline. This is arguably her best performance on screen, with the exception being Dragon Seed. She is excellent and the others are cast well in their parts. I heartily recommend this to those who love good old movies and these actors.

Nice Furs

[boblipton · 7/10 · 22 January 2023]

Paul Kelly is an able seaman, shipwrecked on San Francisco harbor by a record of unreliably. Furrier Aline MacMahon takes him in, puts him to work, and eventually marries him, but Kelly is a louse, although he struggles against it when they have a baby.

As far as I'm concerned, Aline MacMahon can do no wrong in a role. Paul Kelly, on the other hand, seems ill at ease here, and the pacing is deliberately halting. The great number of deleted scenes can be easily explained by looking at the release date: July 14, 1934; with the Hays office bearing down, and the themes of casual sex and adultery (as well as the shot of Kelly and Miss MacMahon in one bed) are as far as they could go, and they had to pay for the sins by having Kelly inexplicably return to Miss MacMahon at the end. Try looking at it and imagine the movie without the undoubtedly tacked-on ending.

love melodrama

[SnoopyStyle · 7/10 · 22 January 2023]

Spinster Bertha Krasnoff (Aline MacMahon) runs a small fur coat shop. Her shrew business skills has made her successful. She takes pity on destitute sailor Tim O'Hara (Paul Kelly). She first feeds the starving man and then later marries him. She loves him despite his philandering nature. She gets a visit from his ex Marguerite Gilbert (Ann Dvorak) who had his baby. He doesn't know about the baby.

It's an early talkie melodrama. I really like MacMahon's performance. Her character is interesting. She's a self-imposed victim. It shows the power of love in a different way. The technical is pretty good. The filmmaking is solid. It's a good small melodrama.