City Streets

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City Streets

1931,

1h 22m,

Crime/

Drama

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Watchlist

80%

5 Reviews

Tomatometer

84%

100+ Ratings

Popcornmeter

80%

Tomatometer

5 Reviews

84%

Popcornmeter

100+ Ratings

A mobster's daughter (Sylvia Sidney) leads her boyfriend (Gary Cooper) from the circus into bootlegging.

Richard Brody

The New Yorker

Jun 16, 2014

This atmospheric gangster classic, from 1931, is based on a story by Dashiell Hammett; it offers a terse visual translation of his prose as well as of his cold-blooded view of Prohibition-era underworld wiles.

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Dave Kehr

Chicago Reader

Apr 11, 2013

Gary Cooper, in a fine, gangly performance as a saintly bootlegger, is worth watching.

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Emanuel Levy

EmanuelLevy.Com

Mar 22, 2012

B

Mamoulian's inentive crime-gangster film of the early sound era stars the young, handsome Gary Cooper in atypical role, before he became a movie star.

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Fernando F. Croce

CinePassion

May 4, 2011

Quite the wry gangster sonata

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Dennis Schwartz

Dennis Schwartz Movie Reviews

Oct 26, 2004

C+

A romance story cloaked in the garb of an outdated crime drama.

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Jan 27, 2019

The best gangster movie ever made!

Han L

Mar 7, 2017

Rouben Mamoulian adds a dose of style to this otherwise ordinary gangster picture - but that style makes all the difference. Instead of simply plot mechanics (girl whose stepfather is a racketeer tries to persuade her boyfriend to join the gang but then regrets it later when he does and her eyes are opened to the brutality), we have something more poetic. Some of this is montage and some of it is inserted shots and some of it is a more natural approach to the settings and events (the couple have a rendezvous at the beach and we and they watch the waves). In any event, the flow of the picture seems different, even if there is still rough stuff among the hoods and some dirty double-crossing familiar to fans of the genre. Reviewers of the time didn't like Paul Lukas as the big boss, but his lilting accent and sophisticated manner inject a little more weirdness to the proceedings. Sylvia Sidney (young!) is captivating as the girl who wants to escape the gangster life (after a stretch in jail) and Gary Cooper (young!) is charismatic as her man who falls in and then falls out with the gang. Mamoulian would later direct "Love Me Tonight" and, while City Streets is not a musical, the director's flair for romance is clearly evident.

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Synopsis

A mobster's daughter (Sylvia Sidney) leads her boyfriend (Gary Cooper) from the circus into bootlegging.

Director: Rouben Mamoulian
Producer: E. Lloyd Sheldon
Screenwriter: Oliver H.P. Garrett
Production Co: Paramount Pictures
Genre: Crime, Drama
Original Language: English
Release Date (Theaters): Apr 18, 1931, Original
Runtime: 1h 22m

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