Beery! Raft! "The Bowery!"

Some things that did not surprise me and did surprise me during a Cultureshark Tower screening of "The Bowery" on Fox Movie Channel:

NOT SURPRISING

*I loved the movie. DUH! Wallace Beery and George Raft, two of my favorite movie stars, headline. Plus there's plenty of broads, boozing, and even some boxing. How can it not be cool?

*Third-billed Jackie Cooper does a lot of blubbering.

*Cooper's blubbering inspires a lot of "Awwww..." faces from Beery. We expect nothing less from this pairing.

*Raft and Beery get into several brawls. The movie tells us right away how rough and tumble the Bowery was in the turn of the century, and since the film is set there, well, by Jove, we're gonna see some rough-housing!

*Guys walk around with cool derby hats and old-old-school mustaches.

*Raft does a little dancing. He got his start in entertainment as a dancer, you know.

*Fay Wray is charming.

SURPRISING

*One of the Raft-Beery brawls features a cast of dozens, as rival volunteer fire squads race to the scene of a blaze, each trying to be first, and wind up in an awesome melee that reportedly caused real injuries to the participants. I wouldn't be stunned if this scene was an inspiration for "Gangs of New York."

*Casual racism. I shouldn't be too taken aback to hear ethnic slurs tossed out with abandon in a 1930s depiction of 1890s New York, but the opening shot, for crying out loud, shows an establishment's name with the "N" word prominent in all its (un)glory. And the Chinese will find plenty to offend them in here, too. Well, we're all offended, but you know what I mean.

*Pert Kelton as a dance hall singer: I've seen her before in old movies and should know better, but it still catches me off guard to see her as anything but the more haggard, rougher-edged pre-Audrey Meadows Alice Kramden.

*"The Bowery" is actually based on real events. Raft's character, Steve Brodie, is a real figure who jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge, or at least said he did. The event is a big deal in this Raoul Walsh film.

*The League of Women Voters gets some action in this movie, and by "action," I mean it gets to break stuff. Some people just protest saloons, but these ladies bust them up.


"The Bowery" is a helluva movie, one worth catching the next time Fox Movie Channel runs it at, say, 8:00 in the morning. I can't think of a better way to wake up than with these lugs doing their thing. Hey, I just thought of something: "Breakfast with Beery." Feel free to use it, Fox (or TCM).