The story is cliched and a bit vague (good guy and good girl get corrupted and sucked into the criminal world around them), but director Rouben Mamoulian isn't very interested in the story; this is really an art movie that follows the surface guidelines of a gangster movie. Pictorially striking and well-acted (especially by Guy Kibbee, whom I've never seen playing such a sleazeball before), it could be classified as an early attempt at avant-garde cinema, decades before avant-garde cinema was in vogue. **1/2 out of 4.
Review of City Streets
