While the City Sleeps (1956)

A serial killer has been killing beautiful women in New York, and the new owner of a media company offers a high ranking job to the 1st administrator who can get the earliest scoops on the case.

Director:

Fritz Lang

Writers:

Casey Robinson (screenplay), Charles Einstein (novel)

Stars:

Dana Andrews, Rhonda Fleming, George Sanders

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Dana Andrews	...	Edward Mobley
Rhonda Fleming	...	Dorothy Kyne
George Sanders	...	Mark Loving
Howard Duff	...	Lt. Burt Kaufman
Thomas Mitchell	...	Jon Day Griffith
Vincent Price	...	Walter Kyne
Sally Forrest	...	Nancy Liggett
John Drew Barrymore	...	Robert Manners (as John Barrymore Jr.)
James Craig	...	'Honest' Harry Kritzer
Ida Lupino	...	Mildred Donner
Robert Warwick	...	Amos Kyne
Mae Marsh	...	Mrs. Manners
Ralph Peters	...	Gerald Meade
Sandra White	...	Judith Felton (as Sandy White)
Larry J. Blake	...	Tim - Police Desk Sergeant (as Larry Blake)

Storyline

Death of media magnat Amos Kyne is causing power struggle between his executives. In the meantime New York women become prey of a serial killer. Reporter Edward Mobley is in that circumstances faced with almost impossible missions: to catch the killer, to prevent the media empire from falling into the wrong hands and to save his romantic relationship from break-up.

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Plot Keywords:

homosexual subtext | mama's boy | comic book influence | murder | wire service | 

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Taglines:

Sensational LIPSTICK Murderer

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Genres:

Crime | Drama | Film-Noir | Thriller

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Certificate:

Not Rated

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

30 May 1956 (USA)

Also Known As:

News Is Made at Night

Filming Locations:

Los Angeles City Hall - 200 North Spring Street, Downtown, Los Angeles, California, USA

Company Credits

Production Co:

Bert E. Friedlob Productions

Technical Specs

Runtime:

100 min

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Recording)

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

The sequence depicting the New York subway was actually filmed in the Pacific Electric Belmont trolley tunnel under downtown Los Angeles. Interurban streetcars doubled for the larger New York subway trains.

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Goofs

When Barrymore Jr. is watching Andrews on TV, he is clutching a copy of "Tales From The Crypt". When he drops it to the floor, a close-up of the comic book now shows it to be titled "The Strangler".

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Quotes

Ed Mobely: But I didn't do anything!
Lt. Burt Kaufman: You think if you're drunk, it doesn't count, huh?

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Connections

Referenced in Maniac (1980)

User Reviews

Not to be missed!

One of my favorites by Fritz Lang, "While the City Sleeps" is also one of the neglected masterworks of 1950s American cinema, a decade as you may know full of insight and social criticism (e.g. "Ace in the Hole", "Bigger Than Life", "Phenix City Story", etc.) It was Lang's penultimate American film and one of his personal favorites.

The film, a dazzling allegory on media manipulation and modernity may not work on single viewing and perhaps that's why it's so underrated, despite a superb cast: Dana Andrews, George Sanders, Ida Lupino, Vincent Price, Mae Marsh, Rhonda Fleming and John Drew Barrymore(the son of the great John Barrymore).

In discussing the picture, Lang often compared it to his German masterpiece, "M"(1931) and the comparison is not inapt. In "M", Peter Lorre's Hans Beckert terrorizes the whole city and creates a paranoia among its citizens. In "While the City Sleeps", Manners's crimes mainly function as a gimmick for the press to sell papers while the normal life in the city seems to continue. Rather than simply conveying the necessary information in "M", the media here in "While the City Sleeps" (consisting of an interplay between television and newspaper) is much more ironic and cynical: they use Manners and his victims to terrify the public to sell more papers, something that is equally true today as it was back in 1956.

Not to be missed.