Regeneration
Oct 25, 2010
(Raoul Walsh, USA, 1915, 72 min)
Raoul Walsh's Regeneration was the first gangster film ever made, and it also belongs to a period in which the feature-length film was just coming into existence and was still in the process of discovering its own rules. Based on the autobiography of a turn-of-the-century gangster, Walsh gives us a powerful slum melodrama produced on location in the lower east side of New York City, with a gaggle of authentic low-life types performing alongside professional actors. The film is a powerful and gritty story about a man brought up in the tough, uncompromising streets, becoming a neighborhood hoodlum who is redeemed when he falls in love with a society woman turned social worker. The film remains a superb example of the dynamic, authentic realism to be found in the 1910's.