The Naked City (1948)

User Rating:

7.8/10   

Director:

Jules Dassin

Writers:

Malvin Wald (story) and
Albert Maltz (screenplay)

Release Date:

4 March 1948 (USA)

Genre:

Crime | Film-Noir | Mystery | Drama

Tagline:

The Soul of a City - HER GLORY STRIPPED! HER PASSIONS BARED! (re-release print ad - many caps)

Plot:

Amid a semi-documentary portrait of New York and its people, Jean Dexter, an attractive blonde model...

Plot Keywords:

New York | Detective | Murder | Police | Investigation

Awards:

Won 2 Oscars. Another 1 win & 4 nominations

Cast

Barry Fitzgerald	...	Det. Lt. Dan Muldoon
Howard Duff	...	Frank Niles
Dorothy Hart	...	Ruth Morrison
Don Taylor	...	Det. Jimmy Halloran
Frank Conroy	...	Capt. Donahue
Ted de Corsia	...	Willie Garzah aka Willie the Harmonica
House Jameson	...	Dr. Stoneman
Anne Sargent	...	Mrs. Halloran
Adelaide Klein	...	Mrs. Paula Batory
Grover Burgess	...	Mr. Batory
Tom Pedi	...	Det. Perelli
Enid Markey	...	Mrs. Edgar Hylton
Mark Hellinger	...	Narrator (voice)

Runtime:

96 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Recording)

Certification:

UK:A (cut) | Norway:16 | West Germany:12 | Finland:K-16 | USA:Unrated

Filming Locations:

City Morgue, New York City, New York, USA

Company:

Hellinger Productions

Trivia:

Life Magazine wrote that this film was producer Mark Hellinger's "personal love letter to New York" and was present on every location in New York checking details and supervising it.

Goofs:

Continuity: In the scene with the police and Mr. and Mrs. Batory at the waterfront, the sun goes up then down.

Quotes:

Muldoon: I don't know anything about medicine, doctor, but that's one prescription that never cured anything.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Strongbad_email.exe (2004) (V)

Taut, tense semi-documentary style with great location shooting in New York City...

THE NAKED CITY is like watching a time capsule unfold of New York City in the late '40s--the cars, the subways, the bridges, the people bustling along busy streets totally unaware of filming (scenes were shot from cars with tinted windows and two-way mirrors), and at the center of it all is a rather routine detective story. But the difference is the style that director Jules Dassin gets out of his material, giving the drama a chance to build up the proper tension before the final shootout on city streets and bridges.

BARRY FITZGERALD is the detective with the very helpful sidekick DON TAYLOR, a young police officer from Queens who helps him track down the man responsible for the death of a pretty blonde in what the tabloids called "The Bathtub Murder". Both men are excellent as they follow a batch of clues to get to the bottom of the crime. HOWARD DUFF is also excellent as a man mixed up in the robberies, with DOROTHY HART as his unsuspecting sweetheart.

TED DeCORSIA, making his film debut, is the athletic villain, working out in his small apartment when detective Taylor finds him--but soon making his escape which leads to the film's most breathtaking moments of a dazzling chase that fills the last ten minutes with high tension suspense.

The crime itself is not that interesting, but the style used to tell the tale (with a voice-over narration telling us at the conclusion that this is just one story in a city of millions) is what makes it far superior to most detective stories. That and the fact that New York City is given the spotlight for location photography that really hits the mark.