Two Girls on the Street

Mária Tasnádi Fekete on violin

Andre De Toth's Two Girls on the Street, from 1939, is a modernist melodrama done with verve and skill. This story of two rural gals, one to the manor born, the other of peasant stock, trying to make it in Budapest is, overall, boisterous fun; especially if one doesn't take its plot points too seriously. We first meet Gyöngyi (Mária Tasnádi Fekete) at fancy engagement dinner where she seems none too pleased. It transpires that she has been impregnated by the groom to be and is upset that she is to be discarded by the cad. She stalks off to Budapest, has an abortion, and winds up supporting herself by playing in an all girl (with one she-male) orchestra. One night on the street, she meets Vica (Bella Bordy) who has just fended off a sexual assault by an architect in a building she was trying to squat in. Gyöngyi takes her under her wing and vows to protect her.

The first half of this film is a rowdy marvel with astonishing documentary footage of Budapest, but the film grows increasingly schizoid as it develops. Vica entreats Gyöngyi's well-off Papa to give his girl a generous stipend and the two move into swankier digs. They even have a white phone! Gyöngyi assumes the role of paterfamilias in their menage, vowing to protect the more innocent Vica and find her a suitable suitor. Vica manages to attract the romantic attentions of the architect who tried to rape her. He doesn't recognize Vica because Gyöngyi has played Pygmalion and given Vica an upscale makeover. Instead of being horrified, Vica is flattered by his attentions. When the architect finally discovers her identity, he thinks the situation is cute. Eeuw! Gyöngyi ramps up the ick factor by romancing the architect herself. She says it is to protect Vica, but De Toth view her motivations ambivalently. Convinced that Gyöngyi has alienated the affections of her man, Vica tries to end it all by jumping off a bridge into the Danube. She fails to off herself and love emerges triumphant or something. 

After verging on masterpiece status in its first half, Two Girls on the Street flirts with kitsch as it nears its denouement. Gyöngyi yearns to be a concert violinist and so we get to see her sawing away in her apartment in the film's attempt to piggybank off the success of the original Intermezzo. Two Girls... climaxes with a montage of Gyöngyi playing the concert halls of Europe superimposed with glimpses of Vica and her architect on their grand tour honeymoon. The film's last scene has Vica taking her new husband his lunch at his worksite. A happy ending celebrating upward mobility, I suppose. What makes it peculiar is that through most of the picture, the film's perspective skews left. Most of its characters are capitalistic parasites or exploited proletariats. The only honorable male we meet is a beggar named Filc who could be taken as a distant cousin of Boudu. When a women riles Filc, he calls her a kulak.

Two Girls on the Street's eighty or so minutes are jam packed with character vignettes, asides, and bric a brac. We see two musical numbers, meet a seedy procurer and a door to door lingerie saleswoman. The technical qualities of the film rival those of the film industries of America, France, and Japan at that time. The editing of the film is brisk and tight, giving the film a propulsive energy its events don't always merit. The cinematography by Károly Vass (The Testament of Dr. Mabuse, Olympia) is outstanding whether showing workers reading posted want ads in a neorealist style or couples dancing at a luxe nightclub in an more elegant fashion. 

De Toth, billed as Tóth Endre here, adapted a play for the film's scenario. He has described his Hungarian films as "rubbish", so it may be assumed he regarded this project as just a job. If so, he did not shirk from his duty and it was good training for a career making B genre films in Hollywood. He may not have believed in the dubious twists of this film's plot, but he never undersells the film onscreen. The flick brims with directorial energy and imaginative usage of multiple exposure shots, whip pans, wipes, and soft focus. He elicits heartfelt and accomplished performances from his cast, particularly Ms. Fekete. Two Girls on the Street may be an incoherent text, but it is a very memorable film.