Review of The Naked City (1948) by Tim H — 28 Apr 2008

Narration can be pretty silly sometimes. But sometimes, I don't mind a little bit of silliness.

This is my second Jules Dassin. The first one I saw Night and the City and I absolutely loved it. I say this for Jules Dassin: he makes a movie beautiful while keeping it interesting. This movie is surprisingly straightforward. I suppose that it could be categorized as a film noir, but I'd far sooner place it as a simple mystery. This movie isn't really concerned with the cool vibe that comes with film noir. Rather, we see policemen and these policemen happen to have families. That is a long way off from the drunken, broken detectives who sell their souls to the night and--.

Sorry, I got caught up in the film noir vibe. The visuals in this movie really are top notch. From the beginning of this film, we get some amazing cityscapes of New York with a unique narrator going over it. I say that the narrator is unique because the narrator introduces himself as the producer of the film. We exist in a real, fictional world...if that makes sense. I say that because the movie is treated as "one tale in the Naked City." It's saying that this world really exists, but we're watching a movie of this real world full of fictional character. (I think that I'm making my head hurt just thinking about it.) Buit these fantastic visuals really show off the majesty of New York that I've only seen in Woody Allen films. Actually, I might even contest that Naked City, in some ways, might one-up even Manhattan simply because the entire movie was filmed on location.

The story may not seem that interesting, especially if you've seen a lot of mysteries / film noirs. But it doesn't really matter about the blood and guts of the movie. This movie is much more about the process than the product. It is honestly important for the police to find this killer, even though he's done with his murder.

The finale really steals the movie. I was blown away with the look of that chase and the beauty of the bridge compared to these tiny little people. There are some shots that really had to compare to the end of Sabotage. Maybe not that epic, but darned close. What's funny is that we barely meet the killer, but we instantly need him to be brought to justice. We worry about what this killer represents. I've been doing a lot of comparing in this review and I feel like I must compare it to one other movie: Silence of the Lambs. While Lambs was more of a gore-creepfest, it does compare to Naked City in the sense that it is far more about the process of catching the killer than having to see the point of view of the killing time and time again.

Dassin succeeds in making another fantastic crime drama and I really should see all of his work. Good thing I have a fine start with these two movies.