A film that plays out, helped by the voiceover narration throughout, like a feature-length version of the kind of crime drama we can see by the hundreds, if not thousands, in the TV schedules every week, The Naked City is another superb Jules Dassin crime drama that deserves to be seen by any film fan already aware of his impact on the landscape of cinema.
A woman is found dead. Murdered. The motive is unclear, but there are soon a couple of likely suspects. Although things start off murky, and with no easy answers in sight as the sensational headlines start to appear in the newspapers, Lt. Dan Muldoon (Barry Fitzgerald) has the patience and determination to keep working away at anything that could help develop the investigation. He is being helped one way by his loyal colleague, Detective Jimmy Halloran (Don Taylor), and helped another way by a prime suspect, Frank Niles (Howard Duff).
Written by Albert Maltz and Malvin Wald, this is a well-constructed and perfectly-paced police procedural that knows to base things around some colourful characters in order to compensate for any of the moments that could otherwise be viewed as dull. The crime seems simple enough at the start, but a number of twists and turns show how different factors worked together to make the final solution a bit trickier than first impressions would suggest.
Fitzgerald lifts the movie up a notch, his character being a wonderful blend of experience, cynicism, compassion, and wry humour. It is an absolutely fantastic performance, making his character as good as it needs to be in order to overshadow the darker plot points. Taylor plays his character just like a Boy Scout out to impress his troop leader, but that is also fine, mainly due to his onscreen time being rationed out throughout the entire film. Duff is untrustworthy from the very beginning, but that doesn’t mean he has committed a murder, and he is lucky enough to have a woman standing by him (played by Dorothy Hart) even as mounting evidence starts to suggest her faith is sorely misplaced. House Jameson plays a doctor who ends up having his collar felt, and Ted de Corsia appears onscreen just in time to help deliver a tense finale that delivers a great chase and gunfight.
Dassin had a habit of delivering films that could entertain and thrill while also feeling almost documentary-like at times, and The Naked City is another fine example of his style. As well as the entertaining character interactions and twisty-turny plotting, you get a real feeling of the police getting results from their dogged determination and investigative work, the instinct to pick up on one bit of information and extrapolate towards another line of investigation. There is also a lot of nice location shooting, showing part of 1940s New York in a way that makes it as much a part of the story as any of the people.
I like most of the other Dassin movies I have seen just a bit more than this one, but this is absolutely still one to recommend. And I could easily rewatch it right now, happily accompanying Muldoon and Halloran around New York as they strive to get justice for a young woman who will be forgotten by many once the newspapers have a new headline to run with.
8/10
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