A busboy in unrequited love with a nightclub performer grows closer to her after she is paralyzed in an attack by her gangster boyfriend.A busboy in unrequited love with a nightclub performer grows closer to her after she is paralyzed in an attack by her gangster boyfriend.A busboy in unrequited love with a nightclub performer grows closer to her after she is paralyzed in an attack by her gangster boyfriend.
- See all cast & crew
- Director
- Writers
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaLucille Ball's favorite of her films. She felt her performance was unjustly ignored by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS).
- GoofsA gathering to raise money to send Gloria Lyons to Florida doesn't raise enough, so a suggestion is made to put it on a horse. A face-on shot of Horsethief shows him sitting down and pulling a paper from his inside pocket. He stands up and unfolds the paper, but then a long shot shows him just starting to take the paper from his pocket.
- Quotes
[about Gloria]
Agustus 'Little Pinks' Pinkerton, II: She's in bad shape, Doc. Can you do something?
Florida Doctor: I wish I could.
Agustus 'Little Pinks' Pinkerton, II: Why can't you?
Florida Doctor: Did you ever hear of a thing called paranoia? No, I guess you didn't. Well, it's what happens to people when they get to believe they're something they're not.
Nicely Nicely Johnson: Now you're cooking with gas.
Violette Shumberg: Shut up, Nicely.
Nicely Nicely Johnson: Don't tell me to shut up.
Violette Shumberg: I'll tell you to shut up anytime I feel like it, and I feel like it now.
Agustus 'Little Pinks' Pinkerton, II: Please go on, Doc.
Florida Doctor: They can go on for a long time and be okay, except when the illusion is shattered. Then they kind of wither up and... phht. Unless it's restored.
Agustus 'Little Pinks' Pinkerton, II: But if it is...
Florida Doctor: I'm afraid what that young lady wants, she'll never get.
Agustus 'Little Pinks' Pinkerton, II: But we can't just stand around and let her die!
[the doctor walks away sadly]
Violette Shumberg: He ain't a very good doctor, Pinks. Why, last months he treated Nicely for a cold, and it turned out to be chicken pox.
Nicely Nicely Johnson: You don't have to be telling everybody I had chicken pox at my age.
Violette Shumberg: If you had chicken pox, you had them. And you had them.
- Crazy creditsOpening credits:
"Loser's Lane --- the sidewalk in front of Mindy's Restaurant on Broadway-- is not as high-toned a trading center as Wall Street, but the brokers are a lot more colorful.
Generally they prefer to put their money on a prizefight or horserace, but when the action slows, anything can happen and it usually does.
Tonight, for example, the citizens of the Lane are discussing the latest contest in their usual quiet way --"
- SoundtracksWho Knows?
(1942)
Lyrics by Mort Greene
Music by Harry Revel
Performed by Lucille Ball at the New York nightclub (uncredited)
Reprised by her with Ozzie Nelson and Orchestra at the Florida nightclub (Vocals for Miss Ball by Martha Mears) (uncredited)
Played often in the score
Packed with great actors, major and minor, in a fast fast whirlwind
First of all, Agnes Moorehead and Ray Collins played the previous year in another raging movie of some fame (Citizen Kane, yup), and here they are loaded up against a dozen other great character actors, plus a couple big names. Headlining is the well known Henry Fonda, still young, but fresh off of a couple great films, Grapes of Wrath (1940), and The Young Mr. Lincoln (1939). But in a kind of startling role for those who know Lucille Ball as a brilliant and goofy t.v. comedian a decade later, we have her here as a big-eyed femme fatale, or would-be femme fatale until fate takes a turn.
You might think this one is a screwball comedy the way it starts, but keep watching-- there is violence and trauma soon enough, and the movie takes a turn that Fonda is worthy of. There is a Frank Capra feel-good element amidst the hardship, but it is full of verve, and all these odd characters who really are (were and are) what New York is at its best. The director Irving Reis (with photographer Russell Metty) keeps the scenes snappy, and sometimes moves from a closeup of a face to a background quickly, to let a character make a dramatic point. There are lots of movie tricks, quick fades from scene to scene to show the passing of time, and some tacky back projection, and it really goes along with the fairy tale narrative.
And there really is an unbelievable ending, which you have to take with the whole flavor of the movie, a kind of sincerity/fantasy mixture.
- secondtake
- Sep 21, 2009
- How long is The Big Street?Powered by Alexa
Details
- Release date
- Country of origin
- Language
- Also known as
- Damon Runyon's The Big Street
- Filming locations
- Miami, Florida, USA(second unit - exteriors)
- Production company
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
- Runtime1 hour 28 minutes
- Color
- Aspect ratio
- 1.37 : 1