In 1952, Edward Dmytryk got tired of prison and decided to name names to HUAC, one of which was Jules Dassin. The blacklisted director was forced into exile in France which isn´t such a bad place to spend your exile when you´re a famous film director. Dassin produced perhaps his best-know film "Rififi" (1955) during his exile, but he also left behind a pretty impressive body of work in the good old US of A. "The Naked City" (1948) is probably the best of his pre-blacklist American films, though I wouldn´t disagree with anyone who granted that honor to "Night and the City" (1950).
Today location shooting is practically taken for granted, but in 1948 Hollywood productions rarely ventured out of their safe and happy studio sets. Dassin, inspired in part by the then-embryonic Italian Neorealist movement, decided to change all that and shoot his crime procedural on the bustling streets of New York City, lending his film a documentary quality that was unique among Hollywood offerings of the time. "The Naked City" provided a glimpse of "Life on the Streets" fifty years before "Homicide" would grace the small screen.
Radical in form, "The Naked City" is fairly mundane in content. A pretty young woman is murdered. Detectives Dan Muldoon (Barry Fitzgerald) and Jimmy Halloran (Don Taylor) seek her killer. In contrast to the modern "buddy cop" formula, Muldoon and Halloran aren´t polar opposites ("One lives by the book, the other never read the book!") but are both pretty straight-laced guys who just follow procedure as they methodically narrow down the list of suspects. Muldoon is older and more "colorful" (i.e. he´s very, very Irish) while Halloran is younger and a bit blander, though he does shave a gorgeous young wife who runs around the house in skimpy outfits. Seedy characters and false leads fade in an out of the story as you might expect, but screenwriter Malvin Wald deserves extra credit for working a harmonica playing wrestler into the script.
There is never any doubt about the outcome of the story. The detectives make mistakes and get distracted along the way, but they are implacable in the pursuit of justice. This is one crucial way in which the film cannot be considered a noir despite some of the stylistic trappings of the genre. In noir, the world is fundamentally disordered, and the innocent are as likely as the guilty to suffer and even die. The world of "The Naked City" is much brighter (though it has its seedy moments), and the honest citizen can rest easy knowing that salvation rests in the capable hands of an efficient and potent police force (Dana Polan - discusses this same point in his interview on the DVD). This sense of order is reinforced by the confident narrator (producer and columnist Mark Hellinger) who guides the viewer through each step of the case.
In an ensemble cast, New York City is the true star. One the posters for the film trumpeted the fact that it was "Filmed on the streets of New York, with a cast of eight million New Yorkers!" Much of the film´s action takes place on the Lower East Side but (according to architect and author James Saunders) the shoot covered 107 different locations in New York, ranging from Manhattan to Astoria and featuring specific locales such as the Williamsburg Bridge, the Precinct House on 20th Street (the real location of the NYPD homicide department at the time) and even the actual mortuary at Bellevue.
he realism of the film´s city locations is contrasted and complemented by Dublin-born Barry Fitzgerald´s borderline-hammy performance as Detective Muldoon, one in a long line of world-wise, common wisdom-spouting Irish cops. Fitzgerald was a great character actor who was a favorite of John Ford; he is best known for his supporting role in "The Quiet Man" but "The Naked City" provides his most substantial role. Fitzgerald steals every scene he´s in, leaving poor Don Taylor (who earned his keep more as a television director than as an actor) to play the underappreciated straight man.
Like any good crime story "The Naked City" has a few chases and shoot-outs, including the spectacular climax on the Williamsburg Bridge, but the focus is more on the humdrum routine of police work as well as the daily rituals of life in New York City circa 1948, just after the war and just at the time it was emerging as a true world metropolis. The city had been depicted on film many times before, but never so extensively or so lovingly. "The Naked City" is a nifty crime drama in its own right, but it is also worth watching solely for its documentary qualities.
Today location shooting is practically taken for granted, but in 1948 Hollywood productions rarely ventured out of their safe and happy studio sets. Dassin, inspired in part by the then-embryonic Italian Neorealist movement, decided to change all that and shoot his crime procedural on the bustling streets of New York City, lending his film a documentary quality that was unique among Hollywood offerings of the time. "The Naked City" provided a glimpse of "Life on the Streets" fifty years before "Homicide" would grace the small screen.
Radical in form, "The Naked City" is fairly mundane in content. A pretty young woman is murdered. Detectives Dan Muldoon (Barry Fitzgerald) and Jimmy Halloran (Don Taylor) seek her killer. In contrast to the modern "buddy cop" formula, Muldoon and Halloran aren´t polar opposites ("One lives by the book, the other never read the book!") but are both pretty straight-laced guys who just follow procedure as they methodically narrow down the list of suspects. Muldoon is older and more "colorful" (i.e. he´s very, very Irish) while Halloran is younger and a bit blander, though he does shave a gorgeous young wife who runs around the house in skimpy outfits. Seedy characters and false leads fade in an out of the story as you might expect, but screenwriter Malvin Wald deserves extra credit for working a harmonica playing wrestler into the script.
There is never any doubt about the outcome of the story. The detectives make mistakes and get distracted along the way, but they are implacable in the pursuit of justice. This is one crucial way in which the film cannot be considered a noir despite some of the stylistic trappings of the genre. In noir, the world is fundamentally disordered, and the innocent are as likely as the guilty to suffer and even die. The world of "The Naked City" is much brighter (though it has its seedy moments), and the honest citizen can rest easy knowing that salvation rests in the capable hands of an efficient and potent police force (Dana Polan - discusses this same point in his interview on the DVD). This sense of order is reinforced by the confident narrator (producer and columnist Mark Hellinger) who guides the viewer through each step of the case.
In an ensemble cast, New York City is the true star. One the posters for the film trumpeted the fact that it was "Filmed on the streets of New York, with a cast of eight million New Yorkers!" Much of the film´s action takes place on the Lower East Side but (according to architect and author James Saunders) the shoot covered 107 different locations in New York, ranging from Manhattan to Astoria and featuring specific locales such as the Williamsburg Bridge, the Precinct House on 20th Street (the real location of the NYPD homicide department at the time) and even the actual mortuary at Bellevue.
he realism of the film´s city locations is contrasted and complemented by Dublin-born Barry Fitzgerald´s borderline-hammy performance as Detective Muldoon, one in a long line of world-wise, common wisdom-spouting Irish cops. Fitzgerald was a great character actor who was a favorite of John Ford; he is best known for his supporting role in "The Quiet Man" but "The Naked City" provides his most substantial role. Fitzgerald steals every scene he´s in, leaving poor Don Taylor (who earned his keep more as a television director than as an actor) to play the underappreciated straight man.
Like any good crime story "The Naked City" has a few chases and shoot-outs, including the spectacular climax on the Williamsburg Bridge, but the focus is more on the humdrum routine of police work as well as the daily rituals of life in New York City circa 1948, just after the war and just at the time it was emerging as a true world metropolis. The city had been depicted on film many times before, but never so extensively or so lovingly. "The Naked City" is a nifty crime drama in its own right, but it is also worth watching solely for its documentary qualities.
In 1952, Edward Dmytryk got tired of prison and decided to name names to HUAC, one of which was Jules Dassin. The blacklisted director was forced into exile in France which isn´t such a bad place to spend your exile when you´re a famous film director. Dassin produced perhaps his best-know film "Rififi" (1955) during his exile, but he also left behind a pretty impressive body of work in the good old US of A. "The Naked City" (1948) is probably the best of his pre-blacklist American films, though I wouldn´t disagree with anyone who granted that honor to "Night and the City" (1950).
Today location shooting is practically taken for granted, but in 1948 Hollywood productions rarely ventured out of their safe and happy studio sets. Dassin, inspired in part by the then-embryonic Italian Neorealist movement, decided to change all that and shoot his crime procedural on the bustling streets of New York City, lending his film a documentary quality that was unique among Hollywood offerings of the time. "The Naked City" provided a glimpse of "Life on the Streets" fifty years before "Homicide" would grace the small screen.
Radical in form, "The Naked City" is fairly mundane in content. A pretty young woman is murdered. Detectives Dan Muldoon (Barry Fitzgerald) and Jimmy Halloran (Don Taylor) seek her killer. In contrast to the modern "buddy cop" formula, Muldoon and Halloran aren´t polar opposites ("One lives by the book, the other never read the book!") but are both pretty straight-laced guys who just follow procedure as they methodically narrow down the list of suspects. Muldoon is older and more "colorful" (i.e. he´s very, very Irish) while Halloran is younger and a bit blander, though he does shave a gorgeous young wife who runs around the house in skimpy outfits. Seedy characters and false leads fade in an out of the story as you might expect, but screenwriter Malvin Wald deserves extra credit for working a harmonica playing wrestler into the script.
There is never any doubt about the outcome of the story. The detectives make mistakes and get distracted along the way, but they are implacable in the pursuit of justice. This is one crucial way in which the film cannot be considered a noir despite some of the stylistic trappings of the genre. In noir, the world is fundamentally disordered, and the innocent are as likely as the guilty to suffer and even die. The world of "The Naked City" is much brighter (though it has its seedy moments), and the honest citizen can rest easy knowing that salvation rests in the capable hands of an efficient and potent police force (Dana Polan - discusses this same point in his interview on the DVD). This sense of order is reinforced by the confident narrator (producer and columnist Mark Hellinger) who guides the viewer through each step of the case.
In an ensemble cast, New York City is the true star. One the posters for the film trumpeted the fact that it was "Filmed on the streets of New York, with a cast of eight million New Yorkers!" Much of the film´s action takes place on the Lower East Side but (according to architect and author James Saunders) the shoot covered 107 different locations in New York, ranging from Manhattan to Astoria and featuring specific locales such as the Williamsburg Bridge, the Precinct House on 20th Street (the real location of the NYPD homicide department at the time) and even the actual mortuary at Bellevue.
he realism of the film´s city locations is contrasted and complemented by Dublin-born Barry Fitzgerald´s borderline-hammy performance as Detective Muldoon, one in a long line of world-wise, common wisdom-spouting Irish cops. Fitzgerald was a great character actor who was a favorite of John Ford; he is best known for his supporting role in "The Quiet Man" but "The Naked City" provides his most substantial role. Fitzgerald steals every scene he´s in, leaving poor Don Taylor (who earned his keep more as a television director than as an actor) to play the underappreciated straight man.
Like any good crime story "The Naked City" has a few chases and shoot-outs, including the spectacular climax on the Williamsburg Bridge, but the focus is more on the humdrum routine of police work as well as the daily rituals of life in New York City circa 1948, just after the war and just at the time it was emerging as a true world metropolis. The city had been depicted on film many times before, but never so extensively or so lovingly. "The Naked City" is a nifty crime drama in its own right, but it is also worth watching solely for its documentary qualities.
Today location shooting is practically taken for granted, but in 1948 Hollywood productions rarely ventured out of their safe and happy studio sets. Dassin, inspired in part by the then-embryonic Italian Neorealist movement, decided to change all that and shoot his crime procedural on the bustling streets of New York City, lending his film a documentary quality that was unique among Hollywood offerings of the time. "The Naked City" provided a glimpse of "Life on the Streets" fifty years before "Homicide" would grace the small screen.
Radical in form, "The Naked City" is fairly mundane in content. A pretty young woman is murdered. Detectives Dan Muldoon (Barry Fitzgerald) and Jimmy Halloran (Don Taylor) seek her killer. In contrast to the modern "buddy cop" formula, Muldoon and Halloran aren´t polar opposites ("One lives by the book, the other never read the book!") but are both pretty straight-laced guys who just follow procedure as they methodically narrow down the list of suspects. Muldoon is older and more "colorful" (i.e. he´s very, very Irish) while Halloran is younger and a bit blander, though he does shave a gorgeous young wife who runs around the house in skimpy outfits. Seedy characters and false leads fade in an out of the story as you might expect, but screenwriter Malvin Wald deserves extra credit for working a harmonica playing wrestler into the script.
There is never any doubt about the outcome of the story. The detectives make mistakes and get distracted along the way, but they are implacable in the pursuit of justice. This is one crucial way in which the film cannot be considered a noir despite some of the stylistic trappings of the genre. In noir, the world is fundamentally disordered, and the innocent are as likely as the guilty to suffer and even die. The world of "The Naked City" is much brighter (though it has its seedy moments), and the honest citizen can rest easy knowing that salvation rests in the capable hands of an efficient and potent police force (Dana Polan - discusses this same point in his interview on the DVD). This sense of order is reinforced by the confident narrator (producer and columnist Mark Hellinger) who guides the viewer through each step of the case.
In an ensemble cast, New York City is the true star. One the posters for the film trumpeted the fact that it was "Filmed on the streets of New York, with a cast of eight million New Yorkers!" Much of the film´s action takes place on the Lower East Side but (according to architect and author James Saunders) the shoot covered 107 different locations in New York, ranging from Manhattan to Astoria and featuring specific locales such as the Williamsburg Bridge, the Precinct House on 20th Street (the real location of the NYPD homicide department at the time) and even the actual mortuary at Bellevue.
he realism of the film´s city locations is contrasted and complemented by Dublin-born Barry Fitzgerald´s borderline-hammy performance as Detective Muldoon, one in a long line of world-wise, common wisdom-spouting Irish cops. Fitzgerald was a great character actor who was a favorite of John Ford; he is best known for his supporting role in "The Quiet Man" but "The Naked City" provides his most substantial role. Fitzgerald steals every scene he´s in, leaving poor Don Taylor (who earned his keep more as a television director than as an actor) to play the underappreciated straight man.
Like any good crime story "The Naked City" has a few chases and shoot-outs, including the spectacular climax on the Williamsburg Bridge, but the focus is more on the humdrum routine of police work as well as the daily rituals of life in New York City circa 1948, just after the war and just at the time it was emerging as a true world metropolis. The city had been depicted on film many times before, but never so extensively or so lovingly. "The Naked City" is a nifty crime drama in its own right, but it is also worth watching solely for its documentary qualities.
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