The sound era offered some serious problems for the three most famous silent comics. Chaplin dealt with the sound era by slowing down his output but continuing to make silents through the 1930s. Harold Lloyd made a few sound films--most of which are far better than I expected. Of the three, however, Buster Keaton had the most difficulty with sound. Part of it was because his sort of pratfalls were pretty much passé by the 30s and part of it was MGM had absolutely no idea what to do with him and often made the worst possible decisions. The biggest mistake they made was ignoring Keaton's suggestions, even though he was a terrific gag writer and comic. The absolute low point with MGM was their pairing his with Jimmy Durante--a comic pairing that made absolutely no sense, as their styles were complete opposites. Keaton was quiet and visual and Durante was all talk.

While "Sidewalks of New York" is not as bad as his later Durante films, it is not all that good. Mostly because it's not very visual and the studio game him a lot of plot--perhaps too much. Keaton comes off as kind of sweet but the timing of his pratfalls are all off. It just doesn't work very well nor is it all that funny. At least his sidekick, Cliff Edwards, isn't as brash or annoying as Durante.

The film is set in a rough neighborhood in New York. When the landlord of some of these tenements arrives to confront the local thugs for busting up his place--and lands in the middle of a riot. But, his anger disappears when he sees the pretty sister (Anita Page) of one of these little punks. So, to impress her, he tries to befriend the kids and builds them a recreation center. Can Keaton manage to win the girl and reform this little hoodlum? Several gags in this film were not bad ideas but the timing was poor. The courtroom gags seem to be overdone and went on too long and the same can definitely be said about the boxing match. In the old days, Keaton directed himself in scenes like this---and I am sure if MGM had let him do it here, the timing would have been a lot better. There were, however, some nice signs of Keaton's physicality--such as when he's escaping from the gang near the end of the film. Buster himself complained about this loss of control and was afraid this film would damage his career. Unfortunately, the film made a ton of money and convinced MGM they knew what they were doing--which they didn't. In subsequent films, the quality continued to drop at an alarming rate.

Taken as a comedy, the film isn't very good. But, if you don't expect laughs, "The Sidewalks of New York" is pleasant and diverting. Not a complete waste of time but clear indication of where Keaton's career was heading.

Bumbling wealthy landlord Mr. Harmon (Buster Keaton) is surprised to find his property fall into chaos caused by rowdy kids. Margie Kelly comes to aid of her little brother and knocks Harmon down. It's love at first sight for him. He decides to help the kids to win her over. It's tougher than he imagined with Margie's brother Clipper working with criminal Butch.

Silent super star Buster Keaton had mixed results during the sound era. This film is one of his successes. It does allow Buster to do his physical comedy. It's relatively funny although the seriousness of Clipper's dilemma is not that fun. Buster is still physically impressive. I do miss a large constructed stunt. While this is not at the level of his silent classics, this does allow Buster to play his character and be the butt of the joke. The romance is nice. It's not high class but Buster does his work well.

The directors of this film, Jules White and Zion Myers, were the directors of the successful Dogville Comedies at MGM. They were rewarded by being given a feature film to direct, that film being Buster Keaton in Sidewalks of New York. I'm sure Keaton was insulted being considered one step above canine stars at MGM, by reading his biography I know he was angry at the autocratic ways of Jules White who was used to directing four-footed stars and thus went about telling Buster how to be Buster. On top of that, their ideas of comedy just did not mesh. Jules White liked mayhem as comedy. This served him well at Columbia with the Three Stooges, but not here with Buster.

The story revolves around wealthy Homer Van Dine Harmon (Keaton) who has sent his assistant (Cliff Edwards) out to collect the rent at the tenements he owns. Edwards is sent home without the rent money and shoe prints on his face. Homer returns to the East Side with Edwards in tow to get the rents himself and winds up in the middle of a neighborhood fight between the kids on the street. At the same time he meets the older sister of one of the tougher kids, Margie (Anita Page),and falls in love at first sight. Margie's brother Clipper is on the verge of getting into serious trouble with the law by hanging around with hoodlum Butch. Homer decides - partly out of real concern for the kids, partly out of pining for Margie - to build a gym where the kids can play safely and get off of the streets and away from bad influences like Butch. Needless to say Butch is unhappy about this development and decides to get rid of the meddlesome Homer when he instructs Clipper to turn what is supposed to be a harmless play into an opportunity for a fatal accident. Will Clipper go through with it? Will Homer get the girl? Watch and find out.

There is one part of this film that is genuinely funny and inspired, and that is when the shy Homer is trying to figure out how to propose to Margie. He follows Cliff Edwards into a record store and Edwards has Homer use the titles of popular songs as the material for his proposal and record the whole thing. This seems to be working out quite well until Homer hits the last song title Cliff holds up, at which time he makes a comment that doesn't quite fit the rest of the recording and is certainly no way to conclude a proposal. This gag was good enough that Buster refurbished it years later when he was a gag writer on "Neptune's Daughter" and he used it in a scene between Red Skelton and Betty Garrett.

This film was a real disappointment to me overall. The gags largely consist of chases, food fights, and prolonged routines that have no sense of timing and just get tiresome. If not for the fact that this film is part of Buster Keaton's filmography I'd say avoid it entirely and find something more worthwhile to do with 74 minutes of your life. Since it is Keaton, it's probably worth one viewing just to say you've seen it.