Lower East Side Heritage Film Series: Regeneration

Tonight is the seventh installment in the second season of the Lower East Side Heritage Film Series at the Seward Park Branch Library. The film on display tonight is called Regeneration, an early silent crime drama dated to 1915.

Regeneration (1915, 60 min., 16mm)

Raul Walsh directs his first full length feature, an early silent crime drama based on the 1903 autobiography My Mamie Rose.  We follow the life of an orphaned Bowery boy turned gangster who makes an attempt to reform his ways after catching the eye of a beautiful society girl turned settlement worker.  Walsh captures authentic street scenes including local residents as extras on the Bowery, in Chinatown, and in Lower East Side tenement housing.

According to the most recent press release, the popular program which features films shot on the Lower East Side, is expanding.  Beginning May 15, the third Tuesday of every month will explore movies from the 1980s shot on our turf. The inaugural screening is of Susan Seidelman’s Smithereens.