Directed by Lionel Rogosin • Documentary • With Ray Salyer, Gorman Hendricks, Frank Matthews • 1956 • 65 minutes
On the Bowery chronicles three days in the drinking life of Ray Salyer, a part-time railroad worker adrift on New York’s skid row. When the film first opened in 1956, it exploded on the screen, jump-started the post-war American independent scene and shortly won an Oscar nomination. Restored by the Cineteca di Bologna, documentarian Lionel Rogosin's first theatrical film is simultaneously an incredible document of a bygone era and a vivid portrait of addiction that resonates today just as it did when it was made.
"Stunningly authentic." —Wesley Morris, Boston Globe
"This landmark documentary disturbs and compels as much today in a new 35mm restoration as it did when it opened in 1956 to both criticism and acclaim." —Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times
Up Next in Classic Docs
-
The Patriot Game
Directed by Arthur MacCaig • Documentary • 1979 • 93 minutes
Rich in emotional images, often tender but more often terrifying, THE PATRIOT GAME tells the story of the long and bitter battle for Northern Ireland.
The film's introduction covers Ireland's history from British colonization to the t...
-
Family Business
Directed by Tom Cohen • Documentary • 1982 • 90 minutes
Part of the acclaimed Middletown series.
Howie Snyder is an archetype: a retired Marine colonel in his mid 40s, he is an American entrepreneur struggling to make his business succeed.
Howie's Shakey's Pizza franchise in Muncie, Indiana em...
-
Dark Circle
Directed by Judy Irving, Christopher Beaver & Ruth Landy • Documentary • 1982 • 82 minutes
It’s been 75 years since the start of the Atomic Age, with the U.S. nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki killing hundreds of thousands of civilians, but its trail of destruction has never ended.
Dark...
