The Street with No Name (1948)

User Rating:

7.2/10   

Director:

William Keighley

Writer:

Harry Kleiner (screenplay)

Release Date:

14 July 1948 (USA)

Genre:

Crime | Drama | Film-Noir | Thriller

Tagline:

Counter Attack!

Plot:

After two gang-related killings in "Center City," a suspect (who was framed) is arrested, released on bail...

Plot Keywords:

FBI | Undercover | Gangster | Criminal Gang | Murder

Awards:

1 nomination

Cast

Mark Stevens	...	Gene Cordell / George Manly
Richard Widmark	...	Alec Stiles
Lloyd Nolan	...	Insp. George A. Briggs
Barbara Lawrence	...	Judy Stiles
Ed Begley	...	Chief Bernard Harmatz
Donald Buka	...	Shivvy
Joseph Pevney	...	Matty
John McIntire	...	Cy Gordon
Walter Greaza	...	Lt. Paul Staller
Howard Smith	...	Ralph Demory
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Joan Chandler	...	Joan Mitchell, Cordell's Fiancée (scenes deleted)

Runtime:

91 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Recording)

Certification:

UK:A (original rating) | UK:PG (re-rating) (2005) | Australia:G | USA:Approved (certificate #12956) | West Germany:16 (nf) | Finland:K-16 | Sweden:15 (1962) | Sweden:15

Filming Locations:

FBI Academy, Quantico, Virginia, USA

Company:

Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation

Goofs:

Plot holes: [SPOILER] After the final shootout Gene immediately asks about Sy's condition, without having known that Sy was in the building at all, let alone wounded.

Quotes:

Alec Stiles: What's the use of having a war if you don't learn from it?

Movie Connections:

Featured in Los Angeles Plays Itself (2003)

Soundtrack:

BEG YOUR PARDON

Inspector Briggs Solves Another

The success of The House on 92nd Street set a whole new trend of film making for 20th Century Fox. For the rest of the forties, that studio had a lot of success with a certain kind of documentary/noir type film.

In The Street With No Name, Lloyd Nolan repeats his characterization of FBI inspector George Briggs. Briggs, who used an undercover operative in The House on 92nd Street, uses another one to track down a gang of thieves in the mythical Center City in midwest USA.

The undercover guy is Mark Stevens and the gang he finds an infiltrates is led by Richard Widmark in his second film. Widmark's not a psycho like he was in Kiss of Death, but he's just as mean and vicious.

Widmark also has a pipeline into the local police and a real cute gimmick in recruiting members for his gang. It's a race against time for Stevens to track down the informer before he's informed on. Director Bill Keighley keeps the suspense at a fever pitch in this one.

Keighley also has a good feel for the flavor of the seamy world of Center City where Widmark operates from. This is noir at it's best.