A Winner Among the 8,000,000 Stories in the NAKED CITY!
Written: Nov 30 '00 (Updated May 04 '04)
Product Rating:
Pros: Influential: Shot at 107 NYC locations, introduced to film many radio/stage actors.
Cons: A few performances reflect acting disciplines other than that of film.
The Bottom Line: NAKED CITY, despite being in monochrome, remains fresh, exciting and engrossing today. It should be seen, if only because it began an enduring popular trend in film.
"You will see the City in its naked stone, the people without make-up," so promises The Narrator of Jules Dassin's NAKED CITY (1948), possibly the most influential police drama in the history of American media. The promise was spectacularly kept. No theatrical film before it had been shot entirely (except for one interior set) in New York City. No earlier theatrical film was populated by so many ordinary New Yorkers. No previous film featured such an array of New York actors from the radio, Broadway, the Group and Yiddish Theaters, most of them new to movies.
NAKED CITY was not only an influence on John Huston's THE ASPHALT JUNGLE (1950) but may be said to have fathered most of the police procedural dramas, starting with the radio (and later TV) DRAGNET, followed by the successful Golden Age series NAKED CITY (1959-1963), down to the present LAW AND ORDER and NYPD BLUE.
Those of you who have read my reviews of Dassin's later movies, *NIGHT AND THE CITY (1950) and *RIFIFI (1955), know that he was given his big chance by Producer Mark Hellinger, a former newsman and famous columnist, who welcomed a chance to return with Dassin in the summer of 1947 to New York City. Hellinger, a friend and equal of Walter Winchell and Ed Sullivan in his time, was known by New Yorkers, high and low, in the 1930's and 1940's, which aided in the production of NAKED CITY immeasurably.
The story behind NAKED CITY began as a young writer from back East, Malvin Wald, met Hellinger casually in Hollywood early in 1946. Wald told him that, when editor of a student magazine at NYC, he had often sent in comic bits for The Column. Hellinger, in turn, embarrassed that Wald had never been paid for these items, asked if Wald had some writing he might look at. Wald showed him an idea for a Western. Hellinger suggested that he make it a crime story and set it in a place they both knew: New York City.
Being the expansive character he was, Hellinger sent Wald back to New York with a letter to his old friend and drinking buddy, Mayor Bill Dwyer. For six months, Wald talked with cops and researched the files of the NYPD. The first lesson he learned was that detectives, unlike Sherlock Holmes or Western heroes, were ordinary men with wives and families, who were often affected by the crimes they worked on. They solved the crimes that came their way, if they solved them at all, by a combination of leg work, forensic science and chance.
The core content of NAKED CITY developed from an unsolved murder, that of a model named Dot King. Wald learned the crime remained unsolved because a wealthy man from Philadelphia produced enough juice in New York City to create immunity. Wald added to the story little vignettes: the cranks who confess out of generalized guilt, or to gain attention; the way in which tendrils of a crime sometimes spread throughout a neighborhood, a city, a society.
Connecticut-born, Group and Yiddish Theater veteran, Jules Dassin, who was directing Hellinger's BRUTE FORCE in 1947, became interested in the rough script Wald wrote, and he brought in an old colleague, Albert Maltz, to polish it. Hellinger gave veteran Cinematographer William Daniels, making a comeback on BRUTE FORCE, a newly published book of photographs, The Naked City, by a New York candid camera photographer known as Weegee. The creative team resolved to shoot on the streets of New York, and to make an attempt to capture Weegee's style in their film.
Dassin added a visual matrix for the film from his European experience in the 1930's, drawing on Walter Ruttmann's BERLIN, SYMPHONY OF A CITY (1927) and Dziga Vertov's THE MAN WITH THE CAMERA (1929). He utilized hidden camera techniques developed by fellow directors and photographers in World War II Army training films at Fort Lee, New Jersey. From his New York friends, he hired Molly Picon, Adelaide Klein, and David Opatoshu of the Yiddish Theater; Howard Duff, Ted De Corsia, House Jamison, Hester Sondergard and Tom Pedi from radio. Hellinger picked out Broadway stage actors like Arthur O'Connell, Jean Adair, and James Gregory for small parts. (Most of them went on to long careers in Movies and TV.)
The only established star in the film was the great Abbey Theater Irish actor, Barry Fitzgerald (brought to Hollywood by John Ford in 1935), who volunteered for the lead, once he was assured he would not have to run or fire a lot of guns.
When the film was finished, Hellinger wrote a running narration, longer than Orson Welles' commentary for THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS, which he eventually read himself over the visuals. Editor Paul Weatherwax cut the dramatic sequences into the documentary footage with an increasingly urgent rhythm, ending in a classic climax on the Williamsburg Bridge. Hellinger, also, unhappy with the soft work of Composer Frank Skinner, had Miklos Rosza mix in his pounding, classic brand of film music.
NAKED CITY, then, begins with an airplane shot of New York Harbor at dawn. As the plane flies over the City, Hellinger tells us we are about to see a different kind of movie, and who made it. The City introduced -- cut to the lights of the buildings at night, and the story begins.
We see blonde model Jeanne Dexter being drowned in the bathtub of her West 83rd Street apartment by two men, at about one o'clock in the morning. Then, it is dawn again, and one of the men, Eddy Garzah (Ted De Corsia), murders his morose partner (Walter Burke) on the docks. The day begins, in the documentary-montage fashion of BERLIN, SYMPHONY OF THE CITY, with the city waking up, but with the film's characters being introduced; and after a maid discovers the body, the police investigation begins.
It is one of the pleasures of NAKED CITY that several stories or subplots are sewn to the main story line. Lt. Dan Muldoon (Fitzgerald), a middle-aged bachelor, is seen shaving, and we catch glimpses of his lonely pipe-smoking life. His rookie partner, Jimmy Halloran (Don Taylor) has a young wife and family; the rigors of case will plant seeds of frustration in his married life that, the film deftly intimates, will cause trouble later on. Murderous thug, Eddy Garzah, normally a wrestler by profession, displays a crudely intelligent sense of drama which occasionally has him trailing the detectives.
In one of the first "morgue scenes" in movie history, Jeanne Dexter, really named Batory, is identified by her deeply guilty, cross-accusing parents from New Jersey (Adelaide Klein and Grover Burgess), and their grief is noted there (and at the end of the film). Muldoon and Halloran, by use of questioning and forensics, ensnare a boyfriend of Jeanne's, Frank Niles (Howard Duff) from Baltimore, who quickly proves to be a habitual liar. He leads them (reluctantly) to Jeanne's psychiatrist, Dr Stoneman (House Jameson), whose sparkling party we observed in the opening montage. It develops that some jewelry in Jeanne's apartment is really stolen property (a factor also drawn by Writer Wald from an actual case).
In these scenes, when NAKED CITY takes us into a morgue, it is indeed the old City Morgue. Frank Nile's apartment is famous club owner Toots Shore's, lent to Hellinger for the shoot. We have scenes at Roosevelt Hospital, Stillman's Gym, the Universal and the Whitehall buildings. In the dramatic use of places like this, THE NAKED CITY goes far beyond Henry Hathaway's THE HOUSE ON 92 STREET (1945).
Then, half way through NAKED CITY, Muldoon and Halloran find out that Frank Niles has a fiancee on the side, Ruth Morrison (Dorothy Hart), who is a model at an expensive shop, where Jeanne used to work.
And so, the mystery is unraveled, at 107 different locations, through lots of leg work, good forensics, chance and a little experienced "luck," culminating in a cross-cut, exciting wonder on Delancy Street, as a score of detectives close in on Eddy Garzah, trapped in the shadow of the Williamburg's Bridge, among hordes of New Yorkers; and then on the Bridge itself. Photographer Daniels contributes superb shots of Garzah dragging his wounded body higher and higher on the Bridge's superstructure, until he rests painfully, watching tiny figures, dressed in white, playing tennis far below. These shots have never been bettered (though Jimmy Cagney's end in Raoul Walsh's WHITE HEAT, a year later, comes close).
And there is a thoughtful denouement, a requiem for Jeanne Dexter aka Batory, if you will, concluded by Mark Hellinger's immortal lines: "There are eight million stories in The Naked City. This has been one of them."
Hellinger, a few weeks after he spoke those words, died of a massive heart attack. Universal had changed hands by then. The McCarthy Scare was just beginning. Director Dassin and Writer Maltz, because of their Group Theater connections, were black listed. Even after some of the richness of the documentary footage had been trimmed, the new Studio Heads did not even want to distribute the film. (The fact that police were seen as "working people" might be considered Communist propaganda!)
Fortunately, Hellinger had financed the film himself and left it to his family as part of his estate. The family threatened to sue Universal if NAKED CITY were not released.
The film went on to win an Academy Award for Photographer Daniels, giving a new long lease to his career, and Weatherwax got one for his editing.
NAKED CITY, though little seen, is now recognized as a unique classic.
I am not sure if the Image DVD contains the same material, but the excellent Roan laserdisc has analogue tracks by Writer Malvin Wald and Star Don Taylor (later a successful TV Director; father of PBS Commentator Anne Taylor Fleming). Although Taylor comes off a bit of a jerk, I found much useful information in their remarks.
Recommended.
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UPDATE: May 4, 2004 -- Here is a tardy revision and correction. About two months ago, I received the delightful note, which I quote in its entirety below. There were indeed a number of Walds in Hollywood at the end of its Golden Heyday. The IMDb seems to regard "Malvin Wald" and "Marvin Wald" almost interchangeably, but as his charming daughter informed me below, it was Malvin Wald who wrote the screenplay for the seminal police story, NAKED CITY.
I am happy to make the correction, and to explore the tips she gave me.
(Nov 30 '00 (Updated Mar 12 '03))
you have the "Writer's" name as Marvin Wald. It is, however, Malvin Wald. http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0907013/
I know because he is my father.
Your review contained many interesting facts and observations. I look forward to reading many more articles by you.
In the article about yourself, you mentioned that your father was a service man. There are some cool stories about my Dad and his time in the service in the Army Air Corps First Motion Picture Unit along with those of his comrades in Hollywood Commandos (1997) (TV)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0247410/ and also stories about him and Ronald Reagan in the book "Dutch."
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B000065V2W/qid=1077965505/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/103-5252557-1696628?v=glance&s=books
So, if you ever update your review, please correct the spelling of my father's name.
Peace,
Jenifer Wald Morgan
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If you wish to read some Macresarf1 reviews mentioned above, click on the following hyperlinks --
Young model Jean Dexter is knocked unconscious and drowned in her own bathtub in her Manhattan apartment, and a lot of jewelry that she supposedly own...More at Barnes and Noble
The story is based on facts about a young woman who is brutally murdered in the streets of New York City and the subsequent manhunt for her killer, wh...More at Meijer
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