Night and the City (1950)

It's a masterpiece, and the last film Jules Dassin made before landing on the blacklist and emigrating to Europe. Zanuck made have made him cast Tierney so she wouldn't kill herself, but he also gave Dassin good advice by telling him to save the important scenes for later in the shoot, so Fox would be obligated to let him finish the picture. But you can tell by the bleakness of the movie that Dassin knew the end was coming, and really didn't give a fuck about giving his audience a happy ending. Widmark is so good as this pathetic sleazeball -- he makes you feel sorry for him, but I don't think you're ever 'rooting' for the guy. You don't really want him to succeed.

Also, the fight sequence/wrestling match is one of the best ever. It just keeps going.

Fuck, I need to watch this again.

What an absolutely terrific film, just steeped in atmosphere, the london setting gives the film an additional element, a certain griminess that tends to be missing from most US based noirs. That opening shot is spectacular, like something out of a Hitchcock film.

Widmark delivers the performance of his career, you kind of want Harry Fabian to succeed but you know he won't because fate is always against him. Tierney looks gorgeous. It's interesting seeing Herbert Lom as a heavy because he's so well connected with the Pink Panther series but as Christos, Lom is superbly sinister.

I agree on that wrestling scene, it's absolutely intense, you really don't want to see Grigoryas lose but it goes back and forth and he eventually triumph's despite The Strangler's brawling methods, then Grigoryas dies and you know Harry's fucked, if Christos was angry with Harry now, he was positively furious with rage when his father died in his arms, it's such a sad, tragic scene.

That final chase is intense, I loved how the score just became a metallic, tap-tap-tap sound to ratchet up the tension.

I didn't realize until I listened to the commentary that Dassin makes a cameo in the film one of Christo's henchman.

Yes and no. The staple of any good film noir is that you're watching characters do extremely unlikable things in unlikable ways. The key to carry you through them is the performances of the person you're following the most. One of the things I love about Night and the City is that all of the characters, even the wrestlers and the more overt villains are well rounded characters are portrayed by actors giving it their all with excellent performances. But none more than Widmark. I think he's something of a genius and this performance is his masterpiece. No, I didn't think he was a likable guy, but he revels in the sleazeball persona so well that I couldn't help but to root for him.

Absolutely a masterpiece. I'm so glad I got the chance to see this at the Brattle last year, it's now one of my favorite films ever.