[78-L] The Public Enemy & Brighten the Corner Where You

[David Lewis]

Dennis wrote:
 
Just started watching "The Public Enemy", the 1931 James?Cagney film, on TCM. In the beginning of the film there is a 'flashback sequence' to 1909, in which there is stock footage of NYC showing many vintage autos in the streets, as well as streetcars & horse-drawn wagons. Were there really that many cars on the streets in 1909, or is the stock footage more likely nearer the WWI period?
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from Authentic footage I've seen going back to 1903 there are already a fair amount of autos on the street of NYC. You may wish to check some of the paper prints on the American Memory site (LoC).
 Also at the start of the film (still in 1909) there is a moving pan shot of a guy carrying 6 beer buckets on a pole(just gotten from a brewery)?across the street to a saloon. Just after he goes through the door?a brass band passes the saloon playing the hymn?"Brighten the Corner Where You Are". I have this song?on an acoustic?Victor 78 with Homer Rodeheaver, recorded in 1915. A quick check on the Cyberhymn.org site says it was written by Ina D. Ogdon(lyrics) & Charles H. Gabriel(music), in 1913. So is this a case of Warner Bros. fudging?on historical accuracy or was there an earlier?form of the song before Ogdon & Gabriel published their version? This wouldn't be unheard of; think of many traditional Negro spirituals & gospel tunes that were passed along aurally years before a published format was issued.  
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That's Wild Bill Wellman indulging in a bit of irony - "Brighten the Corner" was the best known, most memorable of the hymns associated with the Temperance movement, and to contrast the Salvation Army Band playing it as beer bucket carrier passed into the saloon would have conveyed to the 1931 audience - still during Prohibtion by the way - that "okay this is before prohibition, and Band symbolizes the movement to stamp out the saloons, which would prevail a few years later through the Volstead Act." Of course, that set the stage for the rise of gangsterism and bootlegging that the film is mainly about.
 
Sure, no studio in 1931 was generally as careful about historic detail as Hollywood would like you to believe they try to be now - actually in some ways it's worse now. But with the jutaxposition of these two visual elements with this particular tune, Wellman set his stage in an instant. It might not be wholly accurate as history, but that's good visual storytelling, and one of the elemental things that made William Wellmann such a terrific director.   Uncle Dave Lewisuncledavelewis at hotmail.com
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