“I was moved emotionally and psychologically when I first saw Sam Fuller’s films, then I went back to figure out how he made them. Park Row – which is Sam’s favourite, by the way – is a very important movie to me for the use of tracking shots and the staging of action and violence – how the camera tracking implies more violence than there really is. Doing that one long take creates so much in emotional impact, giving you a sense of being swept up in the fury and the anger, that you begin to understand more why it is happening. What Sam always says is that emotional violence is much more terrifying than physical violence.”
– Martin Scorsese

“Park Row is one of the greatest love letters in the history of film, and it’s a love letter to journalism.” 
– Quentin Tarantino

“Brimming with passion and conviction – just like its hero, and its creator.”
 – Leonard Maltin

“Park Row continues to stun through its outrageousness, which at inspired moments becomes a worship of pure energy.” 
– Jonathan Rosenbaum, Film Comment

Long before he became one of Hollywood’s most distinctive writer-directors, Samuel Fuller was a newspaperman, working as a copyboy at the age of 12 and becoming a crime reporter in New York at 17. It was a world that always remained close to his heart, and one that he immortalised in Park Row, a deeply personal project that saw Fuller risk bankruptcy by financing the picture himself, rather than bowing to the studio’s demands for known stars and a colour production. In his typically forthright style, Fuller tells the story of two rival newspapers in 19th century New York, with their contrasting philosophies being embodied by The Globe’s idealistic reporter Phineas Mitchell (Gene Evans) and The Star’s unscrupulous publisher Charity Hackett (Mary Welch). Theirs is a tempestuous relationship in a world where the blood runs as freely as the ink.

Dedicated to American Journalism, Park Row is a stirring tribute to the newspapers of a bygone age, but it also resonates today with its themes of courage, idealism and the challenge of reaching people with honest journalism in an increasingly sensationalised and cheapened tabloid world. The film is also a prime example of Sam Fuller at his dynamic and punchy best, grabbing the audience by the throat immediately and immersing them into this world through his audacious camerawork and fast-talking characters.

Park Row is an exhilarating and heartfelt picture from a filmmaker who was a true original, and its detailed depictions of the sometimes brawling mechanics of typesetting and printing a newspaper make it particularly poignant to screen from an analogue format – we’re proud to present this rare 35mm screening.

Tickets for the show are available via the Cinema Museum box office or from this Ticketlab link.

-30-