Cinema: Manhattan's Lower Depths

Strangers in the City. The camera noses its way along the city streets like an alley cat. It sniffs at battered ashcans spilling over with decaying garbage, a cornucopia of filth. It paws dirty shreds of newspapers that flutter along the sooty pavements like bedraggled kites. It blinks up at row on row of crumbling brownstones, their grimy windows staring back emptily at the street like sightless eyes. The sound track tingles with cool jazz, the dry atonal music of the asphalt jungle, and keens a somber threnody on Spanish guitar strings. The...

Want the full story?

Subscribe Now

Subscribe
Subscribe

Learn more about the benefits of being a TIME subscriber

If you are already a subscriber sign up — registration is free!