director: Aleksander Ford
year: 1932
country: Poland

Józek’s mother, a seamstress by trade, has an accident and ends up bedridden for many months. The boy must earn his living alone. He looses his home and has nothing to live off. His friend, Władek, encourages him to join the “street legion” (legion ulicy). Józek becomes a newsboy. Władek’s friendship, and the support of his buddies, help Józek to survive the tough beginnings. Józek meets Jaśka, the girl he will fall in love with. Józek’s mother needs to undergo an operation. Józek must somehow find the money for his mother’s operation and further medical treatment. He decides to become a “majdaniarz” – a newsboy who earns more money because he delivers newspapers by bicycle. The problem is he doesn’t have a bicycle and can’t afford to buy one, but an unusual opportunity arises. In a street bicycle race a bike is the main prize. He takes part in the race and wins the bicycle.

script: Maksymilan Emmer, Andrzej Wolica
director of cinematography: Seweryn Steinwurzel, Jerzy Maliniak
art direction: Jacek Weinreich
music: Szymon Kataszek, Tadeusz Górzyński
starring: Zofia Mirska (Jaśka) Stefan Rogulski (Józek), Tadeusz Fijewski (Władek), Maria Korska, Zofia Słowińska, Jerzy Kobusz and others.

format: 35 mm
length: 2500 m.
sound
producer: Leo-Film
premiere screening : 18.03.1932

Source notes
Aneta Kozlowska, Filmoteka Narodowa, 20.07.2009

According to Haltof, Marek: Polish National Cinema, Berghahn Books, New York and Oxford, 2002, p.37, Aleksander Ford cast non-actors as well as employing a "documentary" style approach, about twenty years before Neorealism. It is a terrible shame that this avant garde film documenting difficult social conditions has been lost.