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Night and the City (1950)

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3 reviews

Movie review

From Time Out Film Guide

Bizarre film noir with Widmark as a small time nightclub tout trying to hustle his way into the wrestling rackets, but finding himself the object of a murderous manhunt when his cons catch up with him. Set in a London through which Widmark spends much of his time dodging in dark alleyways, it attempts to present the city in neo-expressionist terms as a grotesque, terrifyingly anonymous trap. Fascinating, even though the stylised characterisations (like Francis L Sullivan's obesely outsized nightclub king) remain theoretically interesting rather than convincing. Inclined to go over the top, it all too clearly contains the seeds of Dassin's later - and disastrous - pretensions.

Author: TM

Time Out Film Guide

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User reviews of this film

Iris said...

Posted on Feb 15 2011 05:02 I did not like this film. I also can deal with and enjoy pictures that have people of no morality. I just found this boring predictable and unsatisfying. You want to see a great movie, see Kiss Me Deadly - Now that one holds up!

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Ricardo said...

Posted on Feb 04 2010 06:10 I couldn't disagree more. Night and the City was a wonderful film that focuses exclusively on greed and how it consumes desperate people; Especially one who really could have devoted his life to more conventional, yet safer, methods of becoming important.
Widmark's preformance was in enthralling as the desperate Harry Fabian, probably ranking as one of the best on-screen hustlers. He wasn't suppose to be "villian" he's a small time hustler with big dreams who had an edge of mania. As a matter of fact if you consider Windmark the "villian" almost everyone else should be considered as such because they live on their basic instincts as humans, consume no matter what the cost. I think most people can't handle that concept in films, they always want someone with nobility and morals.

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Karen said...

Posted on Jan 06 2010 02:38 I really wanted to like this film for two reasons. First, it has Richard Widmark as the lead, and I think he in one of two underrated actors of that time (Glen Ford is the other) and it is billed as film noir, and I love film noir. However as I was watching this film, it felt very off to me. Widmark was not convincing as the villian, and while the moved looked like noir, it really wasn't noir. There was just something "off" about the whole film.

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