A Place to Live

1941 0h 17m EN

😐

6.0

MID

★6.0TMDB · 6

Documentary

Synopsis

Spoiler shield

Inner city squalor in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania is the subject of this documentary, which focuses on a child returning from school to his home, a cramped and squalid apartment in a rat-infested slum neighborhood.

“Some stories are better left unspoiled.”

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Cast

Bill Watts
Narrator
Frieda N. Blank
The Mother
William Kesselring
The Boy

Credits

Behind the camera

Director: Irving Lerner
Writers: Muriel Rukeyser
Languages: English
Countries: United States of America

Want more? Switch to Cinephile mode in the header for DP, composer, budget, box office, production companies, keywords, and release history.

Did you know?

Fun facts 🍿

1 / 7

RUNTIME

Did you know

Tight 17-minute runtime — shorter than most television pilots.

MoodPlayr · trivia#01

2 / 7

ERA

Did you know

85 years old — a genuine piece of film history.

MoodPlayr · trivia#02

3 / 7

RUNTIME

Did you know

Lean credit list — fewer than 30 people officially credited.

MoodPlayr · trivia#03

4 / 7

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Directed by Irving Lerner, shot by Roger Barlow. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.

MoodPlayr · trivia#04

5 / 7

CAST

Did you know

Bill Watts and Frieda N. Blank and William Kesselring carry the top of the cast.

MoodPlayr · trivia#05

6 / 7

WILD

Did you know

IMDB entry: tt1847530 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.

MoodPlayr · trivia#06

7 / 7

WILD

Did you know

Only 6 TMDB ratings — you're getting ahead of the curve on this one.

MoodPlayr · trivia#07

Cinephile deep dive

The take

Irving Lerner directs. Roger Barlow behind the camera. Runs lean at under 100 minutes. Produced in United States of America. Dialogue in English.

Trivia

Things worth knowing

1Tight 17-minute runtime — shorter than most television pilots.
285 years old — a genuine piece of film history.
3Lean credit list — fewer than 30 people officially credited.
4Directed by Irving Lerner, shot by Roger Barlow. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.
5Bill Watts and Frieda N. Blank and William Kesselring carry the top of the cast.
6IMDB entry: tt1847530 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.
7Only 6 TMDB ratings — you're getting ahead of the curve on this one.

The technical file

Cinematography: Roger Barlow
Runtime: 17 min · 0h 17m
Status: Released
Original language: EN
IMDB: A Place to Live (1941)

Also by

Irving Lerner

Community reviews

What people are saying

CinemaSerf2025-07-27
★ 6/10
It is quite interesting to look at this film, from a British perspective, and observe that though we exported a great deal to the USA - a bicameral parliamentary system, Magna Carta, Charlie Chaplin et al - I hadn’t quite appreciated that slum dwellings was also one of them! This is a rather stark depiction of a young boy’s life in a Philadelphia that has seen many better days. It showcases all the historic sights of this former American capital city before contrasting those images with some squalid sights that would not have look out of place in a bombed out London, or Manchester, or Glasgow - and at least they could blame the Nazis! That these tiny accommodations were ever built in the first place is a question worth asking, but that they were expected to house families is one too imponderable. The photography almost makes you want to look, nervously, at where you are walking as we are taken through the squalor from the youngster’s perspective for a quarter of an hour that ought to be shown now to anyone planning large scale, economic, housing as an example of how not do do it.