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Noir

Night and the City begins with some darkish shots of the city, at night, over which the titles run. Cut to a long shot of the fog shrouded city of London. A narrator sets the scene for us, providing a typically "noir mood": "This is the city at night, etc". Cut to Harry Fabian {Richard Widmark}, running through the city streets, pursued closely by another man. Finally, Harry makes it to the shelter of his building. Cut to a nifty shot of Harry as he recuperates for a few seconds in his doorway then walks up the stairs to his apartment. Once inside, he wanders through the room for a few minutes and calls out for "Mary". While he's riffling through her purse, Mary {Gene Tierney} appears in the doorway behind him.

Cut closer to a lovely shot of Mary pursing her lovely lips and explaining to Harry that "he won't find any money there". Harry replies that he was only looking for cigarettes. When Mary gives him a hard time about disappearing for the past three days and nights, he tells her that he's been in Birmingham. A man there wants to take him in as a partner in a greyhound track and he only needs three hundred pounds to get started. Mary refuses to give him the money and tells him she's tired of his running and of spending her own life working at the "Silver Fox", getting drunks drunker. She wants to get married and settle down.

Harry tells Mary about the man that's waiting outside for him and, on her way down to pay off Harry's assailant, she stops into Adam's {Hugh Marlowe} apartment to borrow three pounds. Adam's busy burning his spaghetti dinner but takes the time to loan her the money anyway. Cut to Harry as he makes his way through happy London streets at night then walks in on a staff meeting at the Silver Fox, in which Helen {Googie Withers} is explaining the rules regarding ripping off the customers to her "girls".

Upstairs, Phil {Francis L. Sullivan} makes fun of Harry for having been missing for so long then sends Harry out to the local nightclubs and restaurants for another night working as "club tout". Harry routes rich tourists to the Silver Fox where they can be properly fleeced by the girls that work there. At a local wrestling ring, Harry happens to overhear a discussion between "Gregorius the Great" and the management, in which Gregarious {Stanislaus Zbyszko} refuses to let Nikolas {Ken Richmond}, his star wrestler, get into their ring. Later, he uses this bit of information to start up a conversation and get into Gregorius' good graces as they're leaving the club.

Cut to the Silver Fox where Mary is singing. Harry runs in to the club through the back door with a story that he has managed to get Gregorius and Nikolas on his side. Now, he's sure that he has a way to control wrestling across London. While Phil is laughing heartily away, we learn that a man named Kristo currently controls wrestling in London, that this Kristo is Gregorius' son and that Harry only needs to borrow four hundred quid to get the ball rolling. Phil continues to laugh but offers to match an enraged Harry's two hundred quid if he can manage to raisea matching sum. Cut to several scenes of Harry unsuccessfully hitting up members of the London criminal underworld for money.

Harry finally gets the money when he runs into Helen in a late night club. Her only condition is that he get her a license for a night club that she owns so that she can start her own business and escape the clutches of the evil Phil. A bit later, two decidedly shady characters pay a call on Phil and warn him that a Mister Kristo is upset with one Harry Fabian...

Harry's pretty sure of himself, so, Fabian Promotions is very soon up and running with its star wrestler Nikolas and its trainer Gregorius. One of the first visitors to ringside is a Mister Kristo who has come to make threats and muscle his competition out of business. When Christo discovers that Fabian's partner is his father and that Fabian Promotions is intent on promoting "clean" wrestling in London, he backs off just a bit and decides to turn to underhanded methods to take out Fabian. Harry's pretty good at playing games but isn't quite up to dealing with the big boys.

This film is made up of some very nice, high-contrast imagery; it's very well put together and beautifully shot with some lovely, twisted, camera angles and some top notch direction. The movie actually includes some pretty good wrestling footage as well as some excellent performances. Widmark does an exceptional job, the character people are great and Tierney, as usual, has far too small a part. Personally, I doubt there's a part big enough for Miss Tierney; I could watch her all day. This is a perfect Noir film that's easily as good as the best modern movies. I'll even go a short distance out on a limb and say that it's better than nearly all of the American noir films I've seen. If you're a fan of the style; this is one film you need in your library. Noir doesn't get any better.