director Aleksander Ford
screenplay Maksymilian Emmer, Andrzej Wolica
director of photography Seweryn Steinwurzel
music Szymon Kataszek
with Zosia Mirska, Stefek Rogulski, Tadeusz Fijewski, Maria Korska
awards
Readers' Award of the weekly journal, ‘Kino’, 1932
JERZY MAŚNICKI, KAMIL STEPAN, ‘WARSAW INTELLIGENTSIA DISCUSSING IN A CAFE’, [IN:] ‘HISTORY OF POLISH CINEMA’, ED. BY T. LUBELSKI AND K. J. ZARĘBSKI, [WARSZAWSCY INTELIGENCI DYSKUTUJĄ PRZY KAWIARNIANYM STOLIKU [W:] HISTORIA KINA POLSKIEGO],
In 1930 Eugeniusz Cękalski and Aleksander Ford assembled a group of sensitive and intelligent film enthusiasts to found an artistic association ‘START.’ (…) In 1932 they released a film which was a realization of their manifesto. In his first sound film Ford portrayed Warsaw newsboys, quite originally and inventively, too. Instead of countesses and brave lancers or fallen women and criminals he showed the life of a large city and the everyday hard work of its young residents. Instead of static triangles with a background attached, motion and space were filmed in a storytelling manner quite rare in Poland. ‘Legion of the Streets’ was highly praised and readers named it the best Polish film of the year. Today, historians regard it as possibly the best Polish pre-war film, a debatable opinion considering that the film was lost in the turmoil of war.
history periods
