Night and the City [Criterion Collection] [Blu-ray]

Director: Jules Dassin Jules Dassin

Overview

Jules Dassin's Night and the City opens with cheap grifter Harry Fabian (Richard Widmark) running for his life through the streets of London. Harry wants to be big-time, and he does not care how he raises cash for his schemes. Like a junkie, he uses and steals from his girlfriend Mary (Gene Tierney), a singer at the Silver Fox, a seedy nightclub owned by the physically grotesque Phil Nosseross Francis L. Sullivan. Harry, who also works for Phil steering unsuspecting customers to the club, comes up with a plan to wrest control of professional wrestling from promoter and underworld kingpin Kristo (Herbert Lom) by manipulating Kristo through his father, retired wrestling great Gregorius (Stanislaus Zbyszko). For financial backing, Harry turns to Phil and Phil's wife Helen Googie Withers, both of whom give him the money, but only to further their own ends. When Gregorius is accidentally killed by his protege's upcoming opponent, Strangler (Mike Mazurki), and Phil realizes that Helen is leaving him for Harry, the scheme quickly unravels. Truly a glimpse of hell, Night and the City's distorted visuals and dark symbolism depict an underworld from which there is no escape and in which redemption comes at a very high price.

Product Details

Release Date:	08/04/2015
UPC:	0715515153515
Original Release:	1950
Rating:	NR
Source:	Criterion Collection
Language:	English
Time:	1:35:00
Sales rank:	10,014

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Richard Widmark	Harry Fabian
Gene Tierney	Mary Bristol
Hugh Marlowe	Adam Dunn
Googie Withers	Helen Nosseross
Francis L. Sullivan	Phil Nosseross
Herbert Lom	Kristo
Stanislaus Zbyszko	Gregorius
Mike Mazurki	Strangler
Charles Farrell	Beer
Ada Reeve	Molly
Ken Richmond	Nikolas
Eliot Makeham	Pinkney
Betty Shale	Mrs. Pinkney
Russell Westwood	Yosh
James Hayter	Figler
Tony Simpson	Cozen
Maureen Delaney	Anna Siberia
Thomas Gallagher	Bagrag
Edward Chapman	Hoskins (uncredited)
Gibb McLaughlin	Googin the Forger (uncredited)
Aubrey Dexter	Fergus Chilk, Kristo's Lawyer (uncredited)
Derek Blomfield	Young Policeman (uncredited)
Kay Kendall	One of Helen's Girls (uncredited)
Franz Waxman	Composer
Benjamin Frankel	Composer

Technical Credits

Jo Eisinger

Gerald Kersh

Jules Dassin	Director
Jo Eisinger	Screenwriter,Screenwriter
Samuel G. Engel	Producer
Peter Handford	Sound/Sound Designer
Roger Heman	Sound/Sound Designer
Gerald Kersh	Screenwriter

Editorial Reviews

Night and the City is a grim, film noir adaptation of Gerald Kersh's similarly grim source novel. Director Jules Dassin, forced to leave Hollywood because of the 1950s blacklist, effectively uses his London setting to create an urban nightmare. The film is dominated by its downbeat ambience and the moral ambiguity of its characters. There is a protagonist, but he is neither a hero nor an anti-hero. As might have been expected, the film did poorly in its initial US theatrical release. The performances are consistently strong, particularly the lead performance of Richard Widmark. While never greatly popular with audiences, Night and the City presages such intense urban films as Taxi Driver and Seven; the star of the former, Robert De Niro, also starred in a subsequent remake of Night and the City.

All Movie Guide - Richard Gilliam