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The Naked City (1948)

The Naked City

1948

  • Universal Pictures
  • Directed by Jules Dassin
  • Screenplay by Albert Maltz, Malvin Wald
  • Starring Barry Fitzgerald, Howard Duff, Dorothy Hart, Don Taylor, Frank Conroy

Synopsis

Det. Lt. Dan Muldoon (Fitzgerald) and his associate, Jimmy Halloran (Taylor), investigate the murder of a former model. They search for the murderer among the denizens of the gritty streets of New York City. The manhunt ends in a chase along the waterfront and the death of Garzah (Ted de Corsia), the wounded murderer, who plunges off a bridge.

Discussion

In The Naked City, a semi-documentary police procedural, no actor stands out because there are no dramatic roles. The city itself provides the drama. The low-key detectives, Fitzgerald and Taylor, convey competence and determination, patiently pursuing clues and questioning suspects in order to determine the motive and apprehend the murderer. The drama arises as their investigation takes them through crowded streets and into scummy tenements and climaxes in a pursuit of the murderer along the streets, up and down stairways, until they shoot him, and he falls from a bridge with the cityscape looming in the background. The city itself is a major character, providing the setting and atmosphere.

Initially, the picture had the generic title Homicide, but during filming this was changed to The Naked City to parallel the film's imagery of the city in all her forms, including gritty areas unfamiliar to most of the filmgoing public. The Naked City was popular and did very well at the box office, especially in New York City where it played for months.

During production, the producer, director, and screenwriter each met with misfortune. Producer Mark Hellinger spoke the narration providing the needed sound of a native New Yorker. Hellinger had been a New York columnist before moving to Hollywood and becoming an associate producer at Warner Bros. He became an independent producer in 1945. The Naked City had been finished, but not released, when Hellinger died of a heart attack in December 1947. Director Jules Dassin and writer Albert Maltz were caught up in the congressional investigations of supposed communist infiltration and influence in Hollywood. Both men had been members of the Communist Party. In their testimony to the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), directors Frank Tuttle and Edward Dmytryk named Dassin as a member of their Communist group. Blacklisted, Dassin left the US for Europe where, except for short periods, he remained for the rest of his life. Maltz had just finished the script for The Naked City when he was called to testify before HUAC. He refused to cooperate, was convicted of contempt of Congress, and was serving a ten-month sentence in Federal Prison at the time The Naked City was released. After his discharge from prison, he lived and wrote in Mexico for ten years before returning to California.

TCM Film Festival, 2014

The Naked City was shown at the TCM Classic Film Festival in 2014 in the Discoveries category, signifying little-known or forgotten films worth rediscovering. The guest speakers were Eddie Muller and Tiffany Vasquez, TCM Ultimate Fan Contest winner. Muller explained that the film was the first police procedural with a gritty and very real atmosphere. Shot on location, The Naked City earned cinematographer William H. Daniels the only Oscar of his career. Daniels had photographed the great actresses of MGM, such as Greta Garbo, Norma Shearer, and Jeanette MacDonald, on magnificent sets, but seldom ventured into location shooting.

Further Reading

TCM Classic Film Festival, 2014