Sidewalk Stories

Sidewalk Stories weaves a spell as powerful as it is entertaining. Read full review

Charles Lane’s 1989 indie Sidewalk Stories doesn’t just hark back to The Kid; it formally revives the Chaplin classic in the street theater of Dinkins-era Greenwich Village. Read full review

Lane’s conceit is handled with such unassuming sweetness and charm that it never comes across as presumptuous or pretentious, and the simple authority of his conclusion–which uses dialogue in order to point out what most of us refuse to hear when we’re walking down the street–is unimpeachable. Read full review

Lane approaches New York’s unbalanced, inhumane economy the same way he approaches filmmaking: by putting a new frame around familiar sights, and forcing the audience to reconsider them. Read full review

Even more impressive than the tact, warmth and humor of Sidewalk Stories is the fact that it exists at all. Mr. Lane has flown quite fearlessly in the face of fashion, and done this so confidently that any comparisons with Chaplin deserve to be appreciative. Read full review

Sidewalk Stories is a bold and utterly enchanting creation, and its appearance is a signal to watch the multifaceted Lane closely. [09 Nov 1989, p.F1]

It's the gentlest of tales in the grittiest of surroundings. Charles Lane's remarkable feature film debut, Sidewalk Stories, merges the sensibilities of Charles Chaplin and Spike Lee, fashioning a moving examination of homelessness from eloquent silence. [29 Dec 1989, p.5G]

Sidewalk Stories manages to expose the modern-day realities of New York while at the same time recapturing the sentimentality and charm of the classic films of the silent era. [03 Nov 1989, p.47]

Despite the film's serious shortcomings, it does have a certain wan charm. And its surprise ending packs a strong punch. [23 Feb 1990, p.4]

Basic as a home movie -- and twice as touching -- Charles Lane's Sidewalk Stories is a black-and-white silent comedy that pays tribute both to Charles Chaplin's The Kid (1921) and to the urban homeless. [06 Apr 1990, p.4]

It takes awhile for the contemporary moviegoer to adapt to the deliberate pace and the lack of dialogue, but ''Sidewalk Stories'' becomes harder and harder to resist as it goes along, and the ending in a small park filled with homeless people is quite effective. [11 Jan 1990, p.3E]

SIDEWALK STORIES has more heart than art, but its heart is large, and Lane proves himself an ambitious, impassioned filmmaker. Read full review

As an experiment in filmmaking, the movie is too self-conscious and sentimental to be entirely successful. But it has a lot of heart, and the unexpectedly pungent ending makes a powerful comment on today's urban problems. Read full review

Lane does know how to photograph his own interesting, large-eyed face to potent effect. He's an appealing talent, and Sidewalk Stories is a likable film. Beyond novelty value, it also finds modern ways of making contact with the very real feel for poverty that was so much a part of the early Chaplin films. [21 Sep 1989, p.60]

At times, the movie, which has tedious stretches that blunt its charm, is more like a really good idea than a successfully realized picture. [17 Nov 1989, p.C2]

Sidewalk Stories is a comedy of forgotten pleasures. It harkens back to the purest form of cinema to silently record what passes for society today. [16 Feb 1990, p.11]

Too sympathetic to really dislike, but too benign to leave an impression. [05 Jan 1990, p.G7]

An ambitious but sadly misguided attempt to make a contemporary silent comedy which opts for simplistic plotting, sentimentality and mime as it tells of a homeless, black New York street artist's attempts to trace the mother of a baby girl whose father's murder he has witnessed. Read full review

Sidewalk Stories is nobly intended and has many moments of humor and ingenuity. But it's ultimately a sermon with a point so general as to be almost meaningless. And it sure ruins the fun. [25 Nov 1989, p.C08]

The film's ardent sentimentality, as magnified by the schlurpy music, is straight Chaplin, but not as good. The Film's subtext of sight-gag and clown-dance is also straight Chaplin, also not as good. [16 Jan 1990, p.3C]

Lane's comic bits are sodden, and as a result, the film is listless and fatiguing. Read full review

Chaplin's pathos was (at its best) touched with irony. Lane's isn't. [19 Jan 1990, p.68]