Madonna of Avenue A
| Madonna of Avenue A | |
|---|---|
Motion Picture Herald advertisement | |
| Directed by | Michael Curtiz |
| Written by | Ray Doyle Francis Powers |
| Story by | "Mark Canfield" by Darryl Zanuck |
| Starring | Dolores Costello Grant Withers |
| Cinematography | Byron Haskin |
| Edited by | Ray Doyle |
| Music by | Louis Silvers |
Production company | |
| Distributed by | Warner Bros. |
Release date |
|
Running time | 71 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Languages | Sound (part-talkie) English intertitles |
Madonna of Avenue A is a 1929 American sound part-talkie pre-Code drama film directed by Michael Curtiz. It was produced and distributed by Warner Bros. It starred Dolores Costello in one of her first sound films. In addition to sequences with audible dialogue or talking sequences, the film features a synchronized musical score and sound effects along with English intertitles. According to the film review in Variety, 60 percent of the total running time featured dialogue. [1] This is reportedly a lost film.[2][3][4]
Plot
Cast
- Dolores Costello as Maria Morton
- Grant Withers as "Slim" Shayne
- Douglas Gerrard as Arch Duke
- Louise Dresser as Georgia Morton
- Otto Hoffman as Monk
- Lee Moran as Gus
- Rhoda Cross
- Susanne Ransom as Child (uncredited)
- William Russell (uncredited)
Music
The film featured a theme song entitled "My Madonna" with music by Louis Silvers and Fred Fisher and lyrics by Billy Rose. The song is introduced in reel two when Grant Withers sings the song in the moonlight accompanied by a guitar. The song is subsequently played frequently as background music by the Vitaphone orchestra throughout the film.
Censorship
Like many American films of the time, Madonna of Avenue A was subject to cuts by city and state film censorship boards. In Kansas the film, with a plot involving prostitution, illegitimacy, and suicide, was banned by the Board of Review.[5]
See also
References
- ^ Variety 14 Aug 1929 p. 31 https://archive.org/details/variety96-1929-08/page/n270/mode/1up
- ^ The American Film Institute Catalog 1921-30, The American Film Institute, c. 1971
- ^ The AFI Catalog of Feature Films:Madonna of Avenue A
- ^ Madonna of Avenue A at Arne Andersen's Lost Film Files: Warner Brothers Pictures 1929 Archived December 20, 2014, at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Butters, Gerald R. (2007). Banned in Kansas: Motion Picture Censorship, 1915-1966. University of Missouri Press. p. 195. ISBN 978-0-8262-1749-3.
