Rent Night and the City (1950)
3.8 of 5 from 127 ratings
1h 32min
- General info
- Available formats
- Synopsis:
Richard Widmark delivers an indelible performance as Harry Fabian, a small-time American nightclub tout and desperate dreamer who tries to worm his way into the wrestling rackets of post-war London. In his path lie the formidable obstacles posed by a vengeful club owner (Francis Sullivan) and the racketeer Kristo (Herbert Lorn). The club owner's sultry wife (Googie Withers) schemes with him, and a long-suffering girlfriend (Gene Tierney) does her best to save him. Like many a noir hero before him, Harry thinks he can outrun his fate. He's wrong. Jules Dassin, under suspicion in Hollywood for his political beliefs, made the film at great speed, shooting night scenes in a London still shattered and skeletal from wartime bombings. - Actors:
- Richard Widmark, Gene Tierney, Googie Withers, Hugh Marlowe, Francis L. Sullivan, Herbert Lom, Stanislaus Zbyszko, Mike Mazurki, Charles Farrell, Ada Reeve, Ken Richmond, Adelaide Hall, Eliot Makeham, Betty Marsden, Derek Blomfield, Clifford Buckton, Ernest Butcher, Peter Butterworth, Naomi Chance, Edward Chapman
- Directors:
- Jules Dassin
- Producers:
- Samuel G. Engel
- Writers:
- Jo Eisinger, Gerald Kersh, Austin Dempster, William E. Watts
- Studio:
- BFI Video
- Genres:
- Classics, Drama, Thrillers
- Collections:
- All the Twos: 1972-2012, A Brief History of Film..., Top 10 British Actresses of the 1940s, Top Films
- BBFC:
- Release Date:
- 28/09/2015
- Run Time:
- 96 minutes
- Languages:
- English LPCM Mono
- Subtitles:
- English Hard of Hearing
- Formats:
- Pal
- Aspect Ratio:
- Full Screen 1.33:1 / 4:3
- Colour:
- B & W
- BLU-RAY Regions:
- B
- Bonus:
- Original theatrical trailer
- US version audio commentary by film noir expert Paul Duncan
- British version audio commentary by film expert Adrian Martin
- Richard Widmark Interviewed by Adrian Wootton (2002, 72 mins): extensive interview filmed onstage at the National Film Theatre
- The Guardian Lecture: Jules Dassin Interviewed by Alexander Walker (1981, 52 mins, audio with stills): a far-reaching onstage discussion
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Reviews (1) of Night and the City
London Noir. - Night and the City review by Steve
Jules Dassin was one of the talented American directors who came to Europe after WWII to flee McCarthyism. And the themes of (breathless) escape and absence of law are central to his UK debut. Richard Widmark plays a no-hope hustler living on stolen time, who spends his days on the run through a noirish London prowled by bigger, more savage beasts.
When he tries to break into the lucrative wrestling game, he calamitously provokes the Mr Big (Herbert Lom) who runs the racket in the capital. This is an underworld without police, where everyone is on the make, where the criminals bring down each other and only the strongest and most ruthless survive.
It is a cleaned up version of Gerald Kersch's incredibly pessimistic and fatalistic novel; the prostitutes become night club hostesses, etc. Dassin made the socialist film he never could in Hollywood and portrays London as a Darwinist concrete jungle, never more potently than in an astonishingly brutal wrestling scene.
Widmark is indelibly sleazy as the doomed wannabe. The ensemble support cast is all brilliant apart from the misplaced glamour of Gene Tierney. Googie Withers is always worth seeing. And it looks a knockout. Maybe this is the only UK noir that fully stands up to Hollywood on their own terms.
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