Mubi Monday: The Naked City (1948)

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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Mubi Monday: Brute Force (1947)

Director Jules Dassin has a number of classic films scattered throughout his filmography, he is certainly someone that you should become familiar with if you’re exploring cinema, but it took me far too long to get to this one, despite having owned it on shiny disc for years.

Brute Force is a bleak and nihilistic look at prison life, showing the battles between the inmates and the guards, the battles between inmates and other inmates, and the battles that men have with their own willpower. Although you get an interesting mix of cast members, the focus is on a prisoner named Joe Collins (Burt Lancaster) and Captain Munsey (Hugh Cronyn), the former wanting to escape prison life and the latter wanting to be promoted to the position of warden.

Based on a real-life incident, a futile battle between prisoners and guards at Alcatraz after a failed escape attempt, the screenplay by Richard Brooks has numerous moments of unflinching violence throughout. I am not going to say that this remains as powerful today as it would have been when first released, but it certainly still packs a punch. There are familiar prison movie tropes, but it’s arguably more interesting because of the bleak perspective. Even the presence of Sir Lancelot, a calypso musician given numerous small movie roles at this time, doesn’t lighten the mood.

Lancaster and Cronyn are superb in their roles, portraying the typical unbreakable prisoner and unrelenting prison guard that we have seen in so many other prison movies. Neither are good men, but Cronyn’s character has the power, and the sadism, making him the ultimate enemy of those onscreen. As for the rest of the cast, they’re all excellent, and everyone gets a moment to shine (even if they’re reminiscing about how they ended up doing time because of a woman . . . yeah, all these poor prisoners were just suckers for a pretty lady, apparently). Jack Overman, Jeff Corey, John Hoyt, and Art Smith were favourites of mine, but you also have Yvonne De Carlo, Charles Bickford, Sam Levene, and many others to enjoy.

Dassin does his usual great job as director. The pacing is perfect, the thin line between what is depicted onscreen and what is heavily implied is always judged well (although I am sure that was also helped by knowing what would be permitted by the censors), and the weighty exploration of morality, and the different codes applied to different groups of people, is never allowed to slow down a film which rattles along like an unstoppable locomotive heading towards a “track ends” sign.

Not a film to watch when you want something to cheer you up, Brute Force is nevertheless a classic that easily stands the test of time. It’s smart, it still packs a punch, and the ending is unforgettable. 

9/10

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Noir November: Night And The City (1950)

The great thing about the classic film noirs, from my limited experience, is that so few of them seem to be awful. They were movies that could really make the most of their resources, and often had numerous character actors giving some of their best performances. I'm not naive enough to think that every one is a winner, but the hit ratio seems to be a lot higher than other types of movies from this era. And many remain near-perfect viewing experiences. Night And The City is one of the greats.

Richard Widmark stars as Harry Fabian, one of the classic schmucks of film noir. Fabian is a small-time hustler with dreams of the big time. He has a lovely woman in his life (Gene Tierney), who puts up with more than most women would, and he has a network of people who could end up helping him out, if only he'd put his energies to better use. But he knows better, of course, and soon comes up with a scheme to make himself the biggest name in the local wrestling scene. Not by becoming a wrestler, you understand, but by poaching some big names to draw in crowds. He'll put on the best shows, once he sorts out the initial capital investment, which he hopes he can acquire from either Helen (Googie Withers) or her husband, Philip (Francis L. Sullivan). Whoever helps him is going to be upsetting someone else.

Based on a novel by Gerald Kersh, Night And The City is both a painful character study and also, as the title suggests, a look at how the world can be a very different place for those who don't stick to the 9-5 daytime hours that so many others aim for. Director Jules Dassin keeps things balanced between bleak and mesmerising, helped in no small part by the great cast, and also the script by Jo Eisinger. Fabian is a central character who seems destined to fail from the opening scenes, yet he's someone that you can still root for when the odds start to really stack up against him. He's a hustler and a con artist, but he's often honest about it. Certainly more honest than some who end up resenting his ambition.

Widmark is superb in the central role, not exactly oozing charm but certainly putting a positive spin on his own failings until he starts to get more desperate. Tierney's role is a relatively small one, but she's as great as ever. And the sweetest person in the whole movie. Withers and Sullivan are both pretty fantastic, always turning things up a notch whenever they appear to continue the secret game of chess that they're playing against one another, and Herbert Lom is a credible threat as the powerful man that Fabian ends up butting heads with. The great performances don't stop there, however, and I need to also praise Hugh Marlowe, Stanislaus Zbyszko, Mike Mazurki, Charles Farrell, Ada Reeve and Ken Richmond. I think that covers all of the main players.

If you're new to film noir then there are many other classics that are easier to enjoy, films that make for more comfortable starting points, but this remains a real gem. Not just a look at one unsavoury character, it takes viewers on a journey into a world where the unsavoury characters hide and thrive. Fantastic stuff.

9/10

http://www.amazon.com/Night-Criterion-Collection-Richard-Widmark/dp/B0006Z2NE0/ref=sr_1_1?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1415130541&sr=1-1&keywords=night+and+the+city