Night and the City (1950)

User Rating:

8.0/10   

Director:

Jules Dassin

Writers:

Jo Eisinger (screenplay)
Gerald Kersh (novel)

Release Date:

April 1950 (UK)

Genre:

Crime | Film-Noir | Sport | Thriller

Plot:

Harry Fabian (Richard Widmark) is a London hustler with ambitious plans that never work out. One day...

Plot Keywords:

Scheme | Arena | Hustler | Wrestler | Wrestling

Cast

Richard Widmark	...	Harry Fabian
Gene Tierney	...	Mary Bristol
Googie Withers	...	Helen Nosseross
Hugh Marlowe	...	Adam Dunn
Francis L. Sullivan	...	Philip Nosseross
Herbert Lom	...	Kristo
Stanislaus Zbyszko	...	Gregorius
Mike Mazurki	...	The Strangler
Charles Farrell	...	Mickey Beer
Ada Reeve	...	Molly the Flower Lady
Ken Richmond	...	Nikolas of Athens (as Ken. Richmond)
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Adelaide Hall	...	Singer (scenes deleted)
Eliot Makeham	...	Undetermined Role (scenes deleted)
Betty Marsden	...	Undetermined Role (scenes deleted)

Runtime:

101 min | USA:96 min

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Recording)

Certification:

Norway:16 | USA:Approved (certificate #14096) | Germany:16 | Finland:K-15 (new rating: 2001) | France:U | Australia:PG | Finland:(Banned) (1950-1965) | Finland:K-16 | Sweden:15 | UK:A

Filming Locations:

East End Docks, London, England, UK

Company:

Twentieth Century-Fox Productions

Trivia:

Jules Dassin has stated that he did read the novel "Night and the City" until after the film was completed.

Goofs:

Anachronisms: Although the action takes place in London during the 1930s, there is a scene in which we can see an enormous illuminated advertisement in the front of a building: "Errol Flynn, Ida Lupino and Eleanor Parker in ESCAPE ME NEVER". This film was produced in 1947.

Quotes:

Phil Nosseross, Silver Fox Club: You don't know what you're getting into.
Helen Nosseross: I know what I'm getting out of.

Movie Connections:

Featured in The Savages (2007)

Soundtrack:

The Right Kind

like a rat in a trap of his own creation

Every where Richard Widmark's loser character Harry Fabian turns in this film he finds golden opportunities smothered in bad timing. Widmark utilizes a variation of that smarmy, snickering sinister giggle-chuckle that was memorialized in Kiss of Death.It serves the actor well in this film in its toned-down form but offers up a sort of pathetic body language for Fabian, the character. It may be that this American ex-patriot character is just way out of his depth. His hucksterism is not much appreciated by many of his acquaintances in this seedy London underworld. If Harry Fabian would simply accept that he is destined to be a 3rd rate shill and stooge,he might have fund some small pleasures. However, his mind is a shade too quick and his ambition too pumped. He's a user with not a shread of remorse about stepping on others, ripping them off, keeping one tiny step ahead of exposure. This is a superb film, squalid and sinister in its portrayal of greed, corruption and betrayal.