The Naked City is a 1948 film that was written by Albert Maltz and Malvin Wald, it was adapted from a story by Wald. The director is Jules Dassin who would go on to direct Rififi and Topkapi after he was blacklisted in Hollywood. Maltz is another man who was blacklisted. He wrote This Gun For Hire, The Robe, Two Mules For Sister Sarah among others.
Barry Fitzgerald is a New York City homicide detective and Don Taylor is his new rookie detective. They're investigating the murder of an ex-model who was drowned in her bathtub. We see two men do the dirty deed and a bit later one of the men kills the other and tosses him in the river. The detectives follow the clues to their natural conclusion and the baddie is brought to justice.
It's pretty much your standard police investigation filmed in a documentary like style with narration by producer Mark Hellinger. Sadly he died just after the film was completed. It's shot on the streets of New York and the style of the film is heavily influenced by the 1945 photo collection Naked City by photographer Weegee. He was hired as a visual consultant and he does a bang up job. It's a good looking film that creates plenty of mood which goes along well with the serious crime of murder. The film won the Oscar for Best Cinematography for William H Daniels and Best Film Editing for Paul Weatherwax.
The Wikipedia says it the first film appearance of Kathleen Freeman, Bruce Gordon, James Gregory, Nehemiah Persoff, and John Randolph. Keep an eye out for Howard Duff, Ted de Corsia, Arthur O'Connell and Paul Ford. Most of the acting is good but they all have a good script to work with so it's no wonder. It was so good it got nominated for the Best Writing Oscar. It didn't win, it lost to The Search which I haven't seen. That's a 1948 drama set in post WWII Europe. Luckily, neither the library nor Netflix has it. I'm only partially kidding. The film was filmed on location and I would be slightly interested in the footage of the bombed out cities in Germany. The sad drama story just doesn't appeal to me.
I enjoyed The Naked City a whole lot, I liked the look, the music, the characters, the setting and the way they moved the story along. I got the Criterion DVD from the library and the print looks just fine. There's a nice commentary with writer Mark Wald that was well worth a listen. There's an interview with Jules Dassin from 2004 and a couple of featurettes on the film. Worth checking out for the crime film fan. I got the DVD set of The Naked City TV show to rotate through the viewing hole. I think I'll push it up the pile so I can see what that's all about sooner than later.
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