Sin Alley (1957) User Reviews

Worthy of Early Ingmar Bergman

[jromanbaker · 5/10 · 30 April 2021]

Bordering on being simply an exploitation film, the actual story is worthy of early Swedish Ingmar Bergman, and equally doom laden. Made in Denmark in 1957 this ' exposes ' a male prostitution racket, except that the gay customers never get their money's worth. Homosexuals are depicted in a grey sort of area, and one says ' I hate myself ' which sums up their ' outcast ' state in a dog eat dog society that is both brutal and uncaring towards the dispossessed, especially the poor. One such poverty stricken man says. ' they all get us in the end ' and nobody except the rich win. A sad comment on Denmark of the mid-1950's. The story itself is that of a seventeen year old youth, good looking and vulnerable who cannot get a job, and finds himself prey to a couple of pimps waiting to exploit his looks and his life. I was reminded of certain prostitution films made in France during the same era, usually played by either Francoise Arnoul, or Odile Versois in the English made ' Passport to Shame ', except for the female prostitute there is a handy understanding male to save them. This is not the case for young Anton played by a placid actor ( Ib Mossin )who looked like a lamb waiting for the slaughter house, and of course the character he plays is heterosexual. As a critique of a rotten society it deserves a 5 and is as gloomily fatalistic as early Bergman, which is a compliment to its film making. Full of shadows and mist it shows oppression and self-destruction well, but its depiction of homosexuality is appallingly negative, shown one-dimensionally as the worst of pitiful fates. The well of loneliness never looked deeper! 1957 also produced ' The Third Sex ' in Germany, and both were not given a certificate in the UK.

Dark crime with brilliant acting and score

[Gyldmark · 9/10 · 22 December 1999]

This is a third Danish movie from the 1950's, showing a darker side of human nature. The others being Café Paradis (1950) about alcoholism, and Farlig Ungdom (1953) about youth crime. This one shows crime, in the environment of homo-sexuality. We follow young Anton, brilliantly played by Ib Mossin, arriving to Copenhagen from the Danish countryside. He's looking for a decent job, but gets involved in a triangle gang, who tricks older men (who likes younger men) for money. Bundfald means deposit, directly translated. And Anton has a really hard time, getting up from that "bottomless hole", he's in. Very dark film, and talented played. And Sven Gyldmark's strolling score, really deserved the recognition with a Bodil statuette, as well as the directing.

"Sooner or later,they get us."

[morrison-dylan-fan · 8/10 · 13 April 2020]

Taking a look at my run of viewings of 50's Nordic cinema, I realised that I had not seen a title from Denmark. Checking the handful of Danish movies from 1957, one flick stood out to me,leading to me walking down sin alley.

Note:Some spoilers in review.

View on the film:

Keeping Sven Gyldmark's slithering score limited to short bursts, co-directors Palle Kjærulff-Schmidt & Robert Saaskin are joined by cinematographer Rudolf Frederiksen in walking ahead of the French New Wave by a few years in their expert use of a realist soundtrack, filling the moments of silence from Anton walking down side-streets weighing up his options with lone cars passing by and mutterings of folks chatting outside pubs.

Visualising the precise audio design, the directors bring the refined stylisation of Film Noir and Melodrama out in the restrained tracking camera moves following Anton and the lads on the other side of the draped in long shadows tracks,and clipped panning shots in the bar where guys go for their pick-up.

Walking in the clouds with Anton to a thinly-veiled Noir guise ending, the screenplay by Kjærulff-Schmidt brilliantly twists the high drama of teen rebellion movies and the loner state of Film Noir, into a fairly frank take on being gay.

Dropping the young, innocent Anton (played by a great, fresh face Ib Mossin) into mixing with the "wrong crowd" turning tricks, and learning how to hustle older clients. Whilst he has a girlfriend, the fatalistic dialogue Anton has plays on the double meaning of a Film Noir loner looking into the abyss, and of someone,who in the post-WWII era, is found by the cops to be a impressionable youth, who has fallen for the wrong crowd, when taking a walk on the wild side.

danish criminal juvenile delinquant

[happytrigger-64-390517 · 8/10 · 5 September 2019]

A 17 year old very handsome Anton arrives in Copenhagen with hope to work. Instead, he finds himself at a hoodlum's place he meets in a pub. That hoodlum, who looks like Robert Blake, teaches him how to leave that pub with an older man, take him to his flat, and the hoodlum breaks in with a friend to blackmail and rob the older man. Anton falls in love with the hoodlum's sister, but his actual girlfriend from countryside arrives ... From 1957, Bundfald is far more intelligent than american juvenile delinquents movies (directed by Fred Sears or EL Cahn). First, all the casting is great, especially Ib Mossin as Anton, long tall blond danish handsome young man. The hoodlum really looks like Robert Blake and his sister is a pin up but not looking too much stupid. And the direction is intelligent, it announces very well the different twists with great cinematography. Fine noir discovery.