City That Never Sleeps

Edge of your seat plot with extraordinary camera work. Great cast of bad guys, gumshoes and dames. Strippers in early 50's?? Hot stuff Gonna watch again

This was a great movie! Beautiful shadowed images lingering on the screen. I saw this gem at the '06 San Francisco Film Noir Festival #4. The movie was slow early on but when it finally got going it led to an exciting climax. Interestingly narrated is all I'll say about this story. It's a great and sordid tale from a night in the urban jungle. Don't miss this if you get the opportunity. This tight little drama is about a cop ~ Gig Young ~ who gets tempted to dabble in the web of corruption and vice. With Marie WIndsor, Chill Wills, William Tallman, and a few other familiar character actors of the day. And, yes this movie was loaned to the festival by Martin Scorsese. It was his personal 35mm print.

I almost canned this tape after 50 minutes because it was just too slow-moving and had no characters to care about. However, the last 30 minutes were very good, not only because the action picked up but because of the realistic nature of it. Also, the film noir cinematography really picks up that last half hour. In the end, I was glad I watched it. However, to be honest, I wouldn't look at it again. The villain, William Tallman (who, for some reason, gets no billing on the video box), shoots people who get in his way, with one exception, and is a no- nonsense guy. In other words, he's a killer portrayed realistically. The cops in here are either corrupt or rogue heroes such as we saw two decades later with the "Dirty Harry" series. Sidenote: Despite all the corrupt cops shown in the movie, the filmmakers must have felt they needed to cover themselves so, at the end of the film you see the words "The first line of defense!" in lauding police.

If you like your mysteries on the strange side, this movie is the one. I keep wondering how they filmed it without any people on the streets. Stock footage to bolster an obviously low budget helps somewhat, but this movie depicts Chicago in the middle of the night, and the only car on the street is the police car occupied by our hero. But this was 1953, so it was a different world at 3:00 a.m. There is a little of "The Asphalt Jungle" in this one--including the crooked lawyer, a pretty woman too evil for comfort, a safe to steal something from and the usual payment at the end. Then there is the twist -- the "ghost" influence -- who is in the middle of the evening's events, and who also narrates. Plus there's a guy portraying a store window mechanical man. Like I said, this is a strange one, but worth a curious look.

A 1953 Republic gem and a great noir find. This sort of small black and white drama was actually what finished off Republic as TV shows took up this sort of storyline and style, and the studio didn't adapt. Cop Gig Young and burlesque floozie Mala Powers go adulterous and the realism of the noir photography created on actual Chicago streets allow the viewer to be completely absorbed into their cheap backstreet world. This is such an interesting film, and the low budget actually works in its favour......like Monogram's startling DECOY of 1947. Chill Wills appears as a very special and strange character and I won't spoil who he is at all. A very clever and ultimately quite emotional film from a fascinating period in American Cop-dom: 1953...as LA CONFIDENTIAL proved for that city. Find this and relish it, and thank the crummy world of Republic for making it. As a bonus for all us noir-ees, the sensational Marie Windsor is here as well, by the narrowest of welcome margins.