Posted: Wed., Dec. 31, 1941, 11:00pm PT

The Big Street

By Variety Staff

RKO. Director Irving Reis; Producer Damon Runyon; Screenplay Leonard Spigelgass; Camera Russell Metty; Editor William Hamilton; Music Roy Webb

Henry Fonda Lucille Ball Agnes Moorehead Barton MacLane Eugene Pallette Sam Levene

Taken from a Collier mag story [Little Pinks] by Damon Runyon, this is a Cinderella-like fable of a Broadway cafe-singing golddigger who becomes more human long after a fall cripples her for life. Scripter Leonard Spigelgass makes the transition from the grasping, selfish little beauty to a bitter disillusioned girl entirely life-like albeit a prolonged affair. He's done a neat job of transferring the spirit of the piece to the screen, studding it with typical Runyon humor.

Lucille Ball, cast at first in an unsympathetic role, comes through with high laurels. Henry Fonda, as the mooning but intensely loyal Little Pinks, is at his best. Eugene Pallette is well teamed with Agnes Moorehead, the food-loving but realistic Violette whom he weds.

(B&W) Available on VHS. Extract of a review from 1942. Running time: 88 MIN.