Review: Night and the City (1950)

Aside from the occasional lapse back into his giggling psycho “Kiss of Death”  schtick, this is Richard Widmark’s best performance, most memorable character and a fine, underrated noir from Jules Dassin with some superb acting and memorable moments.

 

Widmark plays Harry Fabian, a hopeless loser who is the last to realise it. He’s somewhat of a fish-out-of-water, an American ne’er do well hustler in London who tries to break into the boxing world, but is set for a fall when crossing powerful, somewhat petty nightclub owner Francis L. Sullivan (one of the greats of British cinema, and not just a poor man’s Sidney Greenstreet as some say), and deadly serious gangster Herbert Lom (whom I swear doesn’t blink once in the entire film!). Long-time Aussie resident Googie Withers gives the best and most uncharacteristic performance of her career as Sullivan’s cold, duplicitous wife with ambitions of her own. Gene Tierney is added to the mix for marquee value as Fabian’s long-suffering and naïve girl, whilst Hugh Marlowe is here for no reason at all as her cynical artist pal, both roles a little undercooked. Hulking former wrestler Stanislaus Zbyszko makes much more of an impression in a positively touching turn as the Greco-Roman wrestling old-timer Widmark enlists to make it big, but unfortunately he’s the father of Lom, who has upset his dad by preferring the more modern form of wrestling, with veteran heavy Mike Mazurki featuring with Zbyszko in one impressively brutal and lengthy match-up that is the film’s most famous scene. Lom might be a gangster, but he dearly loves his dad and doesn’t want to see him and his reputation soiled by the two-bit Fabian.

 

This film works wonderfully on two-levels; firstly as a fascinating, powerful character study of a not-so likeable man’s foolhardy attempts at making it big in an area he probably shouldn’t be entering (furthering the fish-out-of-water angle), but ending up having to look over his shoulder should someone stick him in the gut or pop him full of lead- with his problems mostly his own doing. Widmark brilliantly conveys the character’s desperation and ambition and also his ruthlessness. His Harry Fabian is one of cinema’s great losers. Secondly it works on the level of a traditional noir, with wonderful use of light and shadow and a gallery of colourful supporting characters, particularly the unscrupulous double-act of Sullivan and Withers, and Herbert Lom, who along with Sullivan is one of the most underappreciated (and versatile- see him as the deadly serious wannabe Italian gangster in “The Ladykillers”, the Inspector from the “Pink Panther” series, the likeable Italian immigrant buddy in the B-classic “The Hell Drivers” and the doctor in “The Dead Zone”  to name but a few) character actors of all-time (and actually, Widmark has never really gotten his due, either). True, Marlowe’s character never seems to be a part of the same film as everything else, but he’s not in it enough to sour the experience. Those final moments in particular are some of the tensest moments I’ve experienced watching a movie in quite some time.

 

The film was unsuccessfully remade in the early 90s, set catastrophically in NYC and featuring a merely OK Robert De Niro in a role James Woods should’ve played and Jack Warden giving the only truly fine performance in the film (Alan King essentially had the Lom part but wasn’t commanding enough, and Cliff Gorman for chrissakes had the Francis L. Sullivan part, whilst one of my all-time least favourite actresses Jessica Lange stunk up the screen yet again in what I suppose was meant to be a combination of the Tierney and Withers roles). Funnily enough, the remake gets about as much mention in the public sphere as the original, but is clearly a greatly inferior film.

 

Rating: A