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The Naked City (1948)

post #1 of 10
4/7/08 at 10:31am
Thread Starter 
I don't know how many of you noticed that Jules Dassin died a few days ago, but I thought it might be a good idea to re-visit one of his more memorable films. This one was shot entirely on location in NYC (one of, in not the first to do so), and extremely effective as film-noir. Barry Fitzgerald is great as Lt. Muldoon, and Dassin's direction has from what films of his I've seen only been better in Riffi and Never on Sunday. I recommend it as a good start for those interested in Dassin, because it's good as a stand alone film noir and because it's an important film.
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post #2 of 10
4/7/08 at 11:02am
It's fucking great. One of the all-time great New York city movies and one of, if not the first, police procedural. (Melvin Wald, the writer, died recently, too.) I saw it for the first time a month ago. I love it so, so much. (Although I love Night and the City more, because that has singing Gene Tierney.)

I sort of wrote about it for the main page blog, which was adapted from an earlier post I did. Here's some of my thoughts:

Quote:
Dassin, in all of the noir I’ve seen of his, knows how to use locations, and apparently, City was a big deal at the time because it was actually shot on location in New York and not on sets. It shows.

It’s funny how the smallest things can have a big impact on you when it comes to art, and especially film. There’s a scene in City where a cop is interviewing a woman in a resturant on the Lower East Side, and in the background, through the window, a bunch of Orthodox Jews are standing on the corner, waiting for a cab. Knowing what you know about the movie (or what at least the 40s version of Mr. Movie Voice has told you at the beginning), those are real people in real New York. They’re not extras, they’re just standing there, hailing a cab while this movie’s being made. Just another day in New York, just like how you walk by film shoots all the time when you live there. I remember thinking that was cool, buying into the whole of City because of it. Dassin was a Yiddish theatre actor in New York before moving into films, and he was clearly as in love with the city as most people — it’s a very dark movie, but it’s also a movie that shows New York as it is, and I think you have to acknowledge that to really love the city. Or something.

The majority of the opening to this movie sets up this idea that there’s a whole other New York, made up of people that commit crimes and the people who try to stop them, people that only come out at night, and each one of them is worthy of their own story. I love that.

City also features one of the more iconic voice overs in noir, which lives on today in what is probably the Naked City of the modern day, the Law & Order series. Dick Wolf’s more of a Dragnet guy, but there’s a lot of Lennie Briscoe in Barry Fitzgerald’s character, and again, the use of location — Law & Order was, for many years, the only NYC show being shot in New York.
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post #3 of 10
4/7/08 at 12:25pm
Thread Starter 
I still haven't seen Night and the City, damn. Also, I like what you had to say because it's so true. It's shot on location and it's utterly realistic because of that. The closing line, which has become such a cliche now: "There are eight million stories in the naked city. This has been one of them" will never get old, as it's just one of those lines that reaffirms your love for movies. It's a shame Dassin didn't get to grow old making more Hollywood films, but I don't think we could have been given Riffi, Never on Sunday or his criminally under seen A Dream of Passion (which I only just recently saw). Hell, all of his films after Night and the City would probably never have been made if he hadn't been blacklisted. Rest in piece Jules Dassin.
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post #4 of 10
4/7/08 at 1:01pm
Dassin was a master of location, in my mind, and that's what's going to influence me most about his films.
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post #5 of 10
4/10/08 at 4:04pm
Just watched this last night, and enjoyed it greatly. It was interesting to see the transitional space this occupies in the continuity of film, though. You can see a lot of the acting going from the older, more theatrical style to the more modern, "realer" (for lack of a better word) one pretty clearly. Some actors toe the line in the sand, with some seemingly embracing one style or the other. I guess that the same slightly goes for the style of direction, with the outdoor on location scenes filmed in a way that puts some of the more modern greats to shame.

None of this detracts from the film, though. It still stands on its own as an engaging story with some great characters.
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post #6 of 10
4/25/10 at 2:34am
That voiceover makes the film feel like God moving through the face of a city casually observing things as they move along, it's wonderful and adds an element to the film that would've otherwise made it seem almost perfunctory but still an entertaining film.

Although I found Barry Fitzgerald abit over the top at times, it didn't detract from my enjoyment of the film. I liked that the film was filled with interesting but mostly unknown actors, it pulled me into the film more and kept me believing this was just another case in NYC.

It saddens me to think that we might have more great films like this had Dassin not been targeted by HUAC and forced into exile.
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post #7 of 10
4/25/10 at 3:11am
I still haven't seen this.

I've watched a Dassin film every few months; because I want to look forward to seeing another Dassin flick. I remember watching almost every Fellini movie in a row, and afterward wishing I had stretched out the time between viewings, as respite from seeing other movies that surely are bound to not be as good as a Fellini picture.
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post #8 of 10
4/25/10 at 3:15am
I watched this for the first time last year, and while I didn't love it, I really, really liked it. The last twenty minutes were aces, and that shot from the top of the bridge just blew me away. The voice over narration really put me in mind of Blast of Silence (a film that would make for a great double feature with Naked City), and I really think it had to be a bit of an influence. Overall, I found this to be a pretty great procedural film that was firmly of its time, but really laid a lot of the groundwork for everything that came after it. Now I need to see more Dassin.
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post #9 of 10
12/16/10 at 9:48pm
Just saw this. I love everything about it except the cast. The actors just seem a little off and not great. Given the right star power, this could have been an all timer.
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post #10 of 10
12/22/10 at 10:29pm
Blasphemy. Barry Fitzgerald is great in The Naked City. In an ideal world, he does a couple more of these as his character. This is also the world where we got a series with Lawrence Olivier's character from Bunny Lake is Missing. And another movie with Alistair Sim from Green for Danger.
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