Street Girl
About Street Girl
The Four Seasons — Mike Fall, Joe Spring, Pete Summer, and Happy Winter — play a New York café for $100 a week and share one rundown flat. Mike chases off a man bothering Frederika Joyzelle, a hungry violinist, and the band lets her stay. She talks them into demanding a raise, they are fired, and she lands a $300 tryout at Keppel's Little Aregon, where she also sells cigarettes. Prince Nicholaus of Aregon recognizes her from a command performance, kisses her forehead, and the papers make the café famous. Wages jump and Mike quits out of jealousy. For the opening of the larger Club Joyzelle, the prince helps bring him back, and even Happy smiles.
Cast & crew
More about Street Girl
Wesley Ruggles directed RKO's first completed feature. Jane Murfin adapted W. Carey Wonderly's 1928 short story 'The Viennese Charmer.' William LeBaron produced, with Louis Sarecky as associate producer. Leo Tover photographed, William Hamilton edited, and Oscar Levant wrote the music to lyrics by Sidney Clare. The opening was held so that Syncopation could go out first, which made Street Girl RKO's second release. It premiered in New York on 30 July 1929 and opened in the United States on 21 August 1929.
Themes
Background
Released in the first summer of the talkies, before the Production Code was enforced, with a nightclub plot and a kissing scene played for the newspapers.
Making
Ruggles's first all-talking picture, it was also one of the earliest features finished under the RKO name.
Audiences
The film accounted for nearly half of RKO's profit for the year.
Look
Leo Tover shot the café numbers, including Compson's violin solo 'My Dream Memory' and the quartet's 'Lovable and Sweet.'
Music
Oscar Levant composed the songs and Sidney Clare wrote the lyrics. Doris Eaton performs 'Broken Up Tune' with Gus Arnheim's band.
Preservation
A print survives.
Notes
- Betty Compson plays Freddie, John Harron plays Mike, Jack Oakie plays Joe Spring, Ned Sparks plays Happy Winter, Guy Buccola plays Pete Summer, Joseph Cawthorn plays Keppel, and Ivan Lebedeff plays Prince Nicholaus.
- Songs include 'My Dream Memory,' 'Lovable and Sweet,' and 'Broken Up Tune.'
- The New York opening was at the Globe Theatre, later the Lunt-Fontanne.
- The reported take was $806,000 domestic and $198,000 foreign.
- Betty Compson's Academy Award nomination was for The Barker, not for this film.
Scenes
- Prince Nicholaus kisses Freddie's forehead in the café, and the next day's papers fill the room.
- Mike walks out before the Club Joyzelle opening and is pulled back in time to play.
Influenced by
- The Viennese Charmer, a 1928 story by W. Carey Wonderly
Also available
- Wikimedia Commons (Street Girl (1929).webm)
