On the Bowery

The film chronicles three desperate days in a then impoverished lower Manhattan neighborhood, New York's skid row: the Bowery. It is the story of Ray, a railroad worker, who drifts on to the Bowery to have a drunken spree after a long bout of laying tracks and then falls in with a band of drunks who help him spend his money. Ray, the" new guy on the Bowery" whose biceps still fill out his sleeves, looks preoccupied as he enters the "Confidence Bar & Grill". Surrounded by various alcoholics in advanced states of decay he buys them rounds of drinks, then blacks out on his first night, and wakes up to discover that his suitcase has been stolen. The thief will become the closest thing to a friend... and just like that, Ray embarks on a trip to hell, becoming part of the Bowery. In a series of Beckettian portraits, the protagonists, congregations of winos, listless listeners, blubber through numerous bar scenes, games of dominos around a flophouse stove and a sermon at the Bowery Mission. Will Ray find his way out of this uncaring urban jungle?