DOCKS OF NEW YORK directed by Josef Von Sternberg (USA, 1928)
This silent movie was chosen as a compare and contrast exercise with Street Angel, which was the first movie in the syllabus for the MOOC in film history run by Scott Higgins of Wesleyan University called ‘The Language of Hollywood: Storytelling, Sound, and Color’.
The hard-hearted and cynical movie centres on an improbably eventful 24 hours in the lives of a group of sweaty stokers who take a break from the physically demanding work on ship to spend time ashore whoring and drinking.
George Bancroft is the leading man, playing Bill Reynolds, a macho guy who gets his kicks from barroom brawls and is the type to boast of having a girl in every port (his heavily tattooed arm serves as a check list of his conquests). Continue reading
