Lionel Rogosin's On The Bowery (1956) was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. Carla and I walked around the Bowery a couple of months ago and it is unrecognizable from the neighborhood depicted here. At the 52-minute mark you can see how three men filter Sterno so they can drink it.
From the YouTube description:
After the Second World War, Lionel Rogosin made a vow to fight fascism and racism wherever he found it. In 1954, he left the family business, the Beaunit Mills-American Rayon Corporation, in order to make films in accordance with his ideals. As he needed experience, he looked around for a subject and was struck by the plight of the men on the Bowery, and he determined that a portrayal of their daily lives on the streets and in the bars of the New York City neighborhood would make a strong film. Thus, On the Bowery served as Rogosin's practice film for the subsequent filming of his anti-apartheid film Come Back, Africa (1960).
[via r/ObscureMedia]
