Night and the City

"Harry's an artist without an art"

Night and the City tells the story of Harry Fabian (Richard Widmark). He's a man belatedly clinging to a dream of a high life, and won't settle for any kind of normal nine to five existence... he lives a life of desperation and get-rich-quick schemes, and the above quote sums up parasites and talk-men the world over: the promoters, the agents, the scammers and the hustlers. Harry knows how to worm his way into people's confidence, he's an opportunist and a coward with no real friends - little else than money talks to him. And yet, Harry is the 'hero' of this film - he's slime but we feel sorry for him because his morivation and desperation is so obvious that he's easily manipulated by bigger fish. He's like a little kid, eager to join the big time but forever considered a joke by the big boys.

Harry is an atypical American film noir protagonist in an atypical film noir London setting. This is a cold, cynical and sleazy post-war city that starts closing around Harry like a fist when his number is finally up. It's a welcome break from American detective-noir traditions - a new setting for the pond-feeders to interact in. It's also an amazing and sharp-looking masterclass in atmosphere and characterisation; full of low angles, dutch angles, high angles - as many angles as Fabian has himself, and just as few straight ones. I sometimes feel that talking about cinematography in a review if usually a shortcut to pretentiousness, but this film genuinely has some of the most beautiful black and white cinematography... it's film noir at its best, the way smoke curls through the air hypnotically or the way Harry's face threatens to disappear as shadows swallow him up - it's gorgeous.

There's a real sense of foreboding throughout Night and the City. Harry uses a wrestling promoter's father against him, playing a dangerous game and tightening the noose around his own neck for when his scheme eventually falls through (and we know from the start that it will). It's a world where players are always playing each other... the only reason the hapless Harry is able to get a chance in the first place is because someone else is using him for their own schemes.


Director Jules Dassin has his own ideas in mind and goes about them confidentally... the result is an unpredictable but meticulously plotted film that keeps the viewer guessing right up until the terrifying final scenes where Harry runs to his fate. There are certain parts of this film that feel so real and visceral, a standout being the wrestling match between an old wrestler (Stanislaus Zbyszko) and his young rival (Mike Mazurki). It's exhausting to watch these two great slabs of meat grappling with each other for physical supremacy, and there's a tension in the scene that arises from Dassin's great sense of context.

Of course, this film also wouldn't be the classic it is without the presence of Richard Widmark in the lead role. I just love Widmark's default face, that look of abjectness - not quite horror or digust, just that curling of the lip and bemused stare that somehow says he doesn't belong anywhere. It makes Harry a man out of his depth and all the more dangerous for it.

DIRECTOR: Jules Dassin
WRITER/SOURCE: Screenplay by Jo Eisinger, based on a novel by Gerald Kersch.
KEY ACTORS: Richard Widmark, Gene Tierney, Googie Withers, Herbert Lom, Mike Mazurki, Stanislaus Zbyszko, Hugh Marlowe, Francis L. Sullivan

RELATED TEXTS:
- The novel Night and the City by British novelist Gerald Kersch, published in 1938. Kersch wrote about a score of novels in the 40s, 50s and 60s - most of which dealt with petty criminals and gangsters in the London underworld.
- The film was remade (somewhat poorly) by Irwin Winkler as Night and the City, and starred Robert De Niro in the Widmark role.
- Dassin was one of the more notable Hollywood figures to be infamously blacklisted in the late 1940s... Night and The City was his last American film before the blacklisting became active. Prior to this he had directed other film noir films such as Brute Force and The Naked City. After the blacklisting he went on to make the classic European heist film, Rififi.
- More low-burn films about low-life anti-heroes: The Killing of a Chinese Bookie, The Friends of Eddie Coyle, Fingers, Taxi Driver, Bad Lieutenant and The Asphalt Jungle.