East of Fifth Avenue (1933) User Reviews

The Problems of the Rich Are Different Too, But That's Not This Movie's Concern

[boblipton · 6/10 · 23 March 2018]

At a boarding house run by Maude Eburne, there's a lot of drama and comedy going on among the residents and staff. Most of the movie, however, centers around the triangle of gambler Wallace Ford, whose new wife, Mary Carlisle, wants him to get into a real business; and chorus line gypsy Dorothy Tree, his old girl friend, who's a few months along. Guess who the father is.

Given the year and the pretty good cast that Columbia could assemble for its programmers, there's a tendency to compare this to GRAND HOTEL. Perhaps that's what Columbia had in mind; after all, Keaton claimed he had pitched GRAND MILLS HOTEL, an all-star burlesque about a notorious Bowery flophouse, to Thalberg. If you look at it that way, it looks shoddy and ridiculous. If you stop and consider that the problems of the rich and famous are different than ours because they have money, and the problems of people without money might be just as important.... well, it's a strange and revolutionary idea to some, but it might have some truth in it.

It's too bad that director Albert Rogell is just competent, and has a typical Columbia budget. Still, DP Benjamin Kline offers some lovely two-shots of Mr. Ford and Miss Tree.

A great forgotten drama

[AlsExGal · 7/10 · 1 September 2019]

There was very little info available on this film, and I had never heard of it, but found it very watchable, packed with interwoven stories of various boarders in a rooming house... and a bit of a tear jerker. Despite billing, Dorothy Tree is the 'star', a chorus line dancer with a problem..she's pregnant and unmarried..and considering the time of the film, this is all very open (although the 'p' word isn't spoken). She hopes upon his return, the fellow she loves, Wallace Ford, will marry her, but when he brings home a frilly southern belle wife, Tree is crushed. Harry Holman plays a con-man, who promises Lucien Littlefield hair growth and his landlady, Maude Eburne, a turtle that doubles in size every week (if fed a secret diet he will give her if she forgets his back rent). The hair falls out, the turtle does grow (it doesn't really, this is kind of funny), and Ford's bride becomes smitten by a would-be overly dramatic novelist, Walter Byron.

The pace is quick, and there isn't a wasted scene, but at the heart of the multiple individual melodramas is the 'calm' of an elderly couple-- Walter Connolly and Louise Carter..just weeks from their 50th anniversary, and dreaming of returning to England one more time to a home they finally own. The other boarders are like children they never had, and they see and accept all their shortcomings. The ending is bittersweet, hard lessons are learned, and through death comes new understandings.

Dorothy Tree Owns This Movie!!

[kidboots · 8/10 · 2 October 2019]

Ah, boarding house life, and Mrs. Conway (Maude Eburne) has all the representatives - Gardiner (Lucien Littlefield) who despairs of his lack of hair, Sam (Harry Holman) who is always thinking of a get-rich-quick scheme as long as there is no work or money involved and Baxter (Walter Byron) who thinks he is a beacon of culture amidst all the Philistines!! Mary Carlisle might be the top billed actress but Dorothy Tree owns this movie. She is Kitty, desperately awaiting Vic's return - they had had a fling and now she finds out she is having a baby. Tree's performance really elevates this movie as she goes through an emotional wringer. At one stage she contemplates suicide but her close relationship with an elderly couple, the Lawntons, gives her the strength to face things. They are all in all to each other and treat Kitty like the daughter they never had. When Vic does return it is with a wife, Edna (Mary Carlisle) and just when you're thinking that Wallace Ford is not the kind of chap to leave a girl holding a baby, you realise that Edna is not going to win any prizes for Wife of the Year!! She and Baxter find each other - he thinks he has found his muse and can now go to Tahiti where he can be to Poetry what Gaughan was to Art and Edna is just the type of an airhead who would be caught up in the romance of it all!!

Of course Wallace Ford was proving a heck of a versatile actor even in this one, initial thoughts were "what a jerk" but he turned out to be just a gormless guy. Walter Connolly was excellent as the loving Mr. Lawnton who would do anything for his wife. Dorothy Tree had already shown in "Husband's Holiday", her first credited role that she had an understated intenseness to her acting but unfortunately although she never caught on in front of the camera behind the scenes she became a founding member of the Screen Actors Guild and became known for her feminist views. As Dorothy Uris she became a speech and drama coach at the Metropolitan Opera in New York.

Interesting mixture of comedy and tragedy with one element of pure stupidity.

[mark.waltz · 5/10 · 12 April 2018]

It's ironic that in this film with multiple stories that the most ridiculous element would come out of the main part of the plot. This pre-code Columbia film takes place in a huge boarding house right near the Queensborough bridge on the east side of Manhattan. The various tenants and their landlady (the always amusing Maude Eburne) intermingle mostly happily, although for heroine Dorothy Tree, happiness has seemingly bypassed her. She has just discovered that she is going to have a baby out of wedlock, and when the father of the baby (Wallace Ford) returns with a new wife (Mary Carlisle), Tree is heartbroken. Ford vows to make the person who got her pregnant pay to at which point after I finished scratching my head, I started yelling at the screen. After all, even 85 years ago, women became pregnant the same way, and for him to not even consider the fact that he is indeed the father left me baffled. The fact that he considered her more of a good buddy was also perplexing, because having children together is something that good buddies of the opposite sex just don't do unless they have some sort of special arrangement which is definitely not the case here.

Fortunately for Ms. Tree, there's the kindly childless elderly couple (Walter Connelly and Louise Carter) who have taken Tree in as their surrogate daughter. When Carter finds out Tree's painful secret, she is immediately supportive. There is no pointing of fingers, no bible thumping about sin, and no demanding to know who the father is. There is just love and understanding, pure and simple. She offers Tree the chance to go to England with them as their widowed daughter so she can help bring a new baby into the world. But there's just one problem. Time is not on their side. Reminding me of Isaac and Isadore Strauss of "Titanic" fame or the Greek mythological couple Baucis and Philemon who did not want to be parted by death, I had to quickly grab some Kleenex and some water to re-fill my tear ducts.

Baby voiced wife Mary Carlisle is somebody so dumb and annoying that I scratched my head even more over the fact that Ford would marry her yet not consider marrying Tree. She makes Betty Boop seem like a rocket scientist in comparison. Eburne fights with a tenant (Harry Holman) who has been helping her increase the size of her pet turtle, with the result of the turtle allegedly shrinking. Holman, threatened with eviction, begins to romance spinster Kate Campbell who reminded me of Maggie from the "Jiggs" cartoons, sans rolling pin. While their comic relief story was silly, I wanted to see more of them, because they did get the most amusing dialog. The other storyline has con-artist Walter Byron's attempts to scam tenants out of their money (victimizing one of the leading characters in a way that satisfies the plot's conclusion). This isn't quite "Grand Hotel" or "Dinner at Eight" (although it does end at a poignant dinner party honoring the elderly Connelly and Carter) , but between its hits and misses, there are plenty of moments to keep you interested.