Night and the City (1950)

User Rating:

8.1/10   

Director:

Jules Dassin

Writers:

Jo Eisinger (screenplay)
Gerald Kersh (novel)

Release Date:

April 1950 (UK)

Genre:

Crime | Film-Noir | Thriller

Plot:

Harry Fabian (Richard Widmark) is a London hustler with ambitious plans that never work out. One day...

Plot Keywords:

Wrestler | Wrestling | Father Son Relationship | Orchestral Music Score | Rivalry

Cast

Richard Widmark	...	Harry Fabian
Gene Tierney	...	Mary Bristol
Googie Withers	...	Helen Nosseross
Hugh Marlowe	...	Adam Dunn
Francis L. Sullivan	...	Philip Nosseross
Herbert Lom	...	Kristo
Stanislaus Zbyszko	...	Gregorius
Mike Mazurki	...	The Strangler
Charles Farrell	...	Mickey Beer
Ada Reeve	...	Molly the Flower Lady
Ken Richmond	...	Nikolas of Athens (as Ken. Richmond)
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Adelaide Hall	...	Singer (scenes deleted)
Eliot Makeham	...	Undetermined Role (scenes deleted)
Betty Marsden	...	Undetermined Role (scenes deleted)

Runtime:

101 min | USA:96 min

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Recording)

Certification:

Norway:16 | USA:Approved (certificate #14096) | Germany:16 | Finland:K-15 (new rating: 2001) | France:U | Australia:PG | Finland:(Banned) (1950-1965) | Finland:K-16 | Sweden:15 | UK:A

Filming Locations:

East End Docks, London, England, UK

Company:

Twentieth Century-Fox Productions

Trivia:

Finnish censorship visa # 32043 delivered on 19-9-1950 (banned). New decision on 9-4-1965 (K-16).

Goofs:

Anachronisms: Although the action takes place in London during the 1930s, there is a scene in which we can see an enormous illuminated advertisement in the front of a building: "Errol Flynn, Ida Lupino and Eleanor Parker in ESCAPE ME NEVER". This film was produced in 1947.

Quotes:

Adam Dunne: Harry is an artist without an art.
Mary Bristol: What does that mean?
Adam Dunne: Well, that is something that could make a man very unhappy, Mary, groping for the right level, the means with which to express himself.
Mary Bristol: Yes, he is that. Is not he? I like that, Adam. It is a very nice thought.
Adam Dunne: Yes, but it can be dangerous.

Movie Connections:

Featured in The Savages (2007)

Soundtrack:

She Was Poor but She Was Honest

Deserving of MUCH more acknowledgment, one of the best Noir films.

For some reason Night and the City doesn't seem to the credit it deserves; possibly because it was director Jules Dassin's last American film before being blacklisted as a Communist. I wasn't born until the Cold War was winding down, but it seems that with movies like Night and the City to his credit, we could have turned a blind eye even if he really was a Commie.

Honestly this film deserves to rank up there with the likes of The Maltese Falcon, Double Indemnity, or Out of the Past. The scenes of our "hero" Harry Fabian (Richard Widmark, at his best) being chased through London's East End are as starkly beautiful as anything you'll ever see on film. For several minutes there isn't a single shade of gray, everything is literally black or white and the camera itself seems to have joined in hunting Harry. Then there's the long, semi-grotesque wrestling scene that took me totally by surprise, it's like something out of Fellini.

Widmark is utterly believable as Fabian, a charming two-bit grifter who works as a "club tout" but hatches one ill-fated get-rich-quick scheme after another. The rest of the cast is excellent as well, there isn't a cardboard character in the bunch, except maybe Harry's girl Marry (Gene Tierney) though its really more a flaw in the character than the actress. Mary's saintliness may be the writers' only slip-up though, every other character has the sort of depth that makes the film a joy to watch. They inexorably follow their own motivations, which, of course, rely on those of someone else, who inevitably has a goal of his or her own, which will eventually derail the plan of someone whom someone else is counting on (actually, the film is a little less twisted than this review ;-) Criterion has just (2/05) recently released Night and the City and never has the phrase "filmed in glorious black and white" been more appropriate. Before this film seemed to lurk in the shadows of AMC or TCM, only occasionally showing its face, as if it were one of the genre's minor works. Now, if you haven't seen it you have no excuse, and you're only hurting yourself.