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| Gene Evans in Park Row |
Cast: Gene Evans, Mary Welch, Bela Kovacs, Herbert Heyes, Tina Pine, George O'Hanlon, J.M. Kerrigan, Forrest Taylor.
Screenplay: Samuel Fuller.
Cinematography: John L. Russell.
Production design: Theobold Holsopple.
Film editing: Philip Cahn.
Music: Paul Dunlap.
Samuel Fuller's favorite film came out of his own experiences as a newspaper reporter in New York City, though
Park Row is set in the 1880s, a bit before Fuller's journalism career. It's a thoroughly entertaining melodrama about a man with ink in his blood, Phineas Mitchell (Gene Evans), who starts his own newspaper, The Globe, with a bunch of cronies after they're fired from another paper, The Star, after criticizing its timid approach to the news and fawning attitude toward the powerful. Scrappy underdog takes on the big guys, as you've guessed. One of the big guys is actually a woman, Charity Hackett (Mary Welch), the publisher of The Star. In the midst of their newspaper war, Phineas and Charity manage to fall a bit in love, but he puts business before romance and refuses her offer to merge the two papers. A little heavy on the clichés, but full of energy.
