"A Bronx Morning" is pretty much exactly what the title says: 11 minutes of scenes from the Bronx. It is a silent movie, don't be fooled by soundtracks added later, and in black-and-white. It was directed by Jay Leyda 85 years ago and I see he was still extremely young when he made this film and was not too prolific afterward anymore. I read that he also succeeded as a poet and as a photographer, so maybe this was his preferred career choice. As for his work here, I believe this will only appeal to people who either live in the Bronx themselves or just have a very special connection to the city of New York. Everybody else can certainly skip this little movie. Not bad by any means, but not a good watch for anybody either who doesn't really care about the subject of this documentary. I do not recommend watching it, even if the National Film Registry apparently thinks different.

Jay Leyda covers the borough of the Bronx in this historically and visually interesting eleven minute documentary shot before lunch. As historical artifact it captures time, place and character of a section of New York City that was only known for The House That Ruth Built. Leyda's effective unorthodox style offers more than a straight forward portrait of the Bronx as he plays with abstraction and fractured image. Aided immensely by the shadow stretching sun rising over the East River, he creates expressionistic canvases in a documentary setting of city street and storefront. Stylistically, Bronx evokes a Russian influence of Alexander Rodchenko photography and filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein montage, complete but a little over done with homage baby carriages. The editing is a little sloppy at times and there is some image repetiveness but Leyda's imaginative eye keeps things interesting most of the way.

The technique and material in this short feature are both interesting, and they fit together much better than might be expected. Jay Leyda's avant-garde technique works surprisingly well in conveying the sights and atmosphere of the Bronx of his era. For the rather arty methods to blend together with the down-to-earth nature of the Bronx is rather an achievement.Leyda's use of the camera combines rapid montage of loosely-related images, similar to that in the features of Vertov and other Soviet directors of the era, with the basic 'city symphony' approach exemplified by Ruttmann's excellent Berlin feature. The beginning and the end also feature some of Leyda's own abstract ideas. The actual material, by contrast, shows everyday scenes from a lot of different Bronx businesses and neighborhood activities.It's worth seeing a couple of times, since the technique is rather distinctive, and since it also does well in preserving an interesting neighborhood as it was in the 1930s.

On the surface, "A Bronx Morning" is just that -- a morning in the Bronx.On the other hand, it's an avant garde look at street life in the NYC borough. The filmmaker is less concerned with the identities of the people going about their daily business as much as he is with what people are doing (jumping rope, rocking a baby carriage).Anyone curious as to how the Bronx looked in the early 1930s should definitely check this one out.The short runs 11 minutes in length and should be available on DVD at this point.Worth looking into.