LGM Film Club, Part 126: On the Bowery

If you’ve never seen the remarkable 1956 Lionel Rogosin film On the Bowery, do yourself a favor. It’s really amazing. The story is pretty interesting. Rogosin was a World War II veteran who became infuriated by racism and other forms of inequality and wanted to fight it through film. On the Bowery was really intended as an on-the-job training session for him to figure out how to even make a movie since he had no experience. Somehow, he not only managed to do it, but then it won Best Documentary at the Venice Film Festival and got nominated for the Best Documentary Academy Award despite that old sourpuss Bosley Crowther slamming it in the Times as too depressing. Well yeah, it’s a film about drunks drinking themselves to death in the Bowery!