The Shakedown
About The Shakedown
Dave Roberts is a boxer who loses fights his manager has fixed. He pulls a boy, Clem, off the tracks in front of a train and takes him in, and he grows close to Marjorie, who expects him to be honest. He has to decide whether to keep going down for the manager or to fight Battling Roff for real.
Cast & crew
More about The Shakedown
William Wyler directed. Charles Logue and Clarence Marks wrote it. Carl Laemmle Jr. produced it for Universal, which released it on March 10, 1929. Jerome Ash and Charles J. Stumar photographed it. Joseph Cherniavsky wrote the music. Richard Cahoon and Lloyd Nosler edited it. Universal issued a part-talking version for English-speaking houses and a synchronized version, without English dialogue, for other markets.
Themes
Background
In 1929 Universal was shipping two editions of the same picture, one with some spoken scenes and one with music and effects only, so the film could play both in English-language houses and abroad.
Making
Wyler was still early in his Universal years. He puts himself in the fight crowd as a still photographer and stages the moral choice inside a fixed bout rather than in a speech.
Look
Jerome Ash and Charles J. Stumar shot the ring and the railroad rescue. The surviving image comes from the international track's picture, not from the lost part-talking negative.
Music
Joseph Cherniavsky wrote music for the synchronized release. The part-talking English version also had spoken scenes. The Blu-ray from the Eastman House print omits the original track.
Preservation
The original part-talking version appears to be lost. The international synchronized version survives in an Italian archive. In 1998 George Eastman House prepared a silent version of that print, later issued on Blu-ray without the soundtrack.
Notes
- James Murray plays Dave, Barbara Kent plays Marjorie, Jack Hanlon plays Clem, and George Kotsonaros plays Battling Roff.
- Wheeler Oakman is the manager. Harry Gribbon plays Dugan.
- Wyler appears uncredited as a photographer at the arena. John Huston is an uncredited extra.
- The English part-talking version is believed lost.
- An international sound version with its synchronized track survives in an Italian archive.
- In 1998 George Eastman House staff made a silent version from that print. A Blu-ray of this silent version was released without the original track.
Scenes
- Dave pulls Clem clear of an oncoming train.
- He has to choose, with Marjorie and the boy watching the kind of man he is, whether to throw the fight with Battling Roff.
Also available
- Blu-ray of the 1998 George Eastman House silent version (original soundtrack not included)
