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The Naked City (1948)
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Overview
User Rating:
Director:
Writers:
Release Date:
4 March 1948 (USA)
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Tagline:
The Soul of a City - HER GLORY STRIPPED! HER PASSIONS BARED! (re-release print ad - many caps) more
Plot:
Amid a semi-documentary portrait of New York and its people, Jean Dexter, an attractive blonde model...
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| full synopsis
Awards:
Won 2 Oscars.
Another 1 win
&
4 nominations
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NewsDesk:
(4 articles)
There’s got to be a Fake Porno Title in There -- Dellamorte reviews The French Connection and French Connection II on Blu-ray
(From Collider.com. 4 March 2009)
Spring Preview: A Repertory Calendar for the Coasts
(From IFC. 18 February 2009, 2:17 PM, PST)
(From Collider.com. 4 March 2009)
Spring Preview: A Repertory Calendar for the Coasts
(From IFC. 18 February 2009, 2:17 PM, PST)
User Comments:
Shots have been fired, chloroform has been administered.
more (49 total)
Cast
(Complete credited cast) | Barry Fitzgerald | ... | Det. Lt. Dan Muldoon |
| Howard Duff | ... | Frank Niles |
 | Dorothy Hart | ... | Ruth Morrison |
| Don Taylor | ... | Det. Jimmy Halloran |
| Frank Conroy | ... | Capt. Donahue |
| Ted de Corsia | ... | Willie Garzah aka Willie the Harmonica |
| House Jameson | ... | Dr. Stoneman |
| Anne Sargent | ... | Mrs. Halloran |
| Adelaide Klein | ... | Mrs. Paula Batory |
| Grover Burgess | ... | Mr. Batory |
| Tom Pedi | ... | Det. Perelli |
| Enid Markey | ... | Mrs. Edgar Hylton |
| Mark Hellinger | ... | Narrator (voice) |
Additional Details
Parents Guide:
Runtime:
96 min
Country:
Language:
Color:
Aspect Ratio:
1.37 : 1 more
Sound Mix:
Mono (Western Electric Recording)
Certification:
Filming Locations:
Company:
Fun Stuff
Trivia:
Both Paul Ford and John Randolph were working on the New York stage in the hit drama "Command Decision" (which itself would be produced by MGM as a Clark Gable vehicle) when they appeared in this film, which was shot on location in the city.
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Goofs:
Revealing mistakes: In the scene where New York's East Side is being introduced, a set of headlights can be seen appearing and disappearing near the center of the shot.
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Quotes:
Muldoon:
No, the picnic is over, you've told your last lie. You're knee deep in stolen jewlery. You're involved the the Dexter Murder. You've been trying to obstruct justice all along the line. Now you're gonna tell me what I want to know or so help me if it's the last thing I do in this department, I'll get you twenty years. Now that's the truth Sonny Boy, and you know I'm not bluffing. Who's Henderson? Who's Henderson?
Frank Niles: Stoneman! It's Doctor Stoneman.
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Frank Niles: Stoneman! It's Doctor Stoneman.
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Movie Connections:
Referenced in Strongbad_email.exe (2004) (V)
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FAQ
This FAQ is empty. Add the first question.more (49 total)
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This is a real original and just about everybody involved knows it. A documentary style police drama with real New York locations -- "Nothing was shot in a studio!" And it does capture New York City, circa 1947, entering a late florescent age. Many of the shots were "stolen," taken on real streets from a van with tinted windows, with only the principal actors knowing that a movie was being made.
White collar workers all wear suits and ties. There is a sidewalk salesman hawking neckties. An ice man with those over-sized calipers. A milkman driving a horse and wagon. A Kosher Deli. Little girls playing jump rope -- "Out goes the doctor, out goes the nurse, out goes the lady with the alligator purse." Kids on swings. People reading newspapers over someone else's shoulder while jolting along on the subway. A shootout on a tower of the Williamsberg Bridge. A blind man and his dog. Stillman's Gym with two professional wrestlers being coached in how to register pain. Two girls gawking at a wedding dress in a shop window and mooning over "Frankie." Ethnic people -- Italians, Irish, Jewish, Polish. Accents -- "A boxer-fighter maybe? What do I know?" "Eh, bene, bene -- encore." Scrubby walnut trees in brick-strewn vacant lots. Working class accents mostly, including that of the narrator, Mark Hellinger. Nobody is black or Puerto Rican. The taxi drivers speak English. No bums or dopers. It's all here, or rather it was all there.
Now, of course, it's all a little familiar because we've gotten used to location shooting and wince when shots are obviously studio made. But this was new at the time and is still enjoyable to watch.
The performances are adequate. Don Taylor is bland and doesn't have any accent but he's easy to identify with, at least for me, because he's so pleasant and handsome. Barry Fitzgerald has an oddly creased face and crudely shaped cranium. His smile is almost a mile wide, a caricature of itself, a lovable guy. Howard Duff is -- well, Howard Duff, a liar and a thief. Ted deCorsia is great. We first meet him working out in his shabby apartment, flexing and admiring himself in front of the mirror, his body pale and flabby, a shock of coarse black hair over his sweating forehead. And that voice, like a coffee grinder. And check out the list of supporting actors. Wow. Arthur O'Connell, Nehemia Persoff, James Gregory, inter alia.
The story itself isn't very much. Rather routine. Could have been a good radio drama of the sort that were popular at the time -- "Suspense" or "The Whistler" or "Inner Sanctum." And the narrator's voice-over sometimes creaks at the joints as it strains for hard-boiled sonority -- "Yesterday she was just another pretty face. This morning she's the marmalade on everybody's toast." (That line kills me.)
And, I have to admit, that it paints a kind of pretty picture of police procedures. Barry Fitzgerald in particular is folksy, humorous, and compassionate. I kept waiting for him to remove his pipe and mutter, "Ego te absolvo." The police offices look too CLEAN. There are no dents in the wall from suspects having their heads slammed against it. Every surface seems too recently to have been painted. Suspects who shout angrily at their police interrogators and are obviously lying are just politely reasoned with.
Well, okay. This might have been "gritty" at the time but now it's just an interesting picture, a little glossy maybe, but a lot of fun, and ahead of its time with that location shooting by Daniels.