Incannerax What a waste of my time!!!

Infamousta brilliant actors, brilliant editing

Bluebell Alcock Ok... Let's be honest. It cannot be the best movie but is quite enjoyable. The movie has the potential to develop a great plot for future movies

Sienna-Rose Mclaughlin The movie really just wants to entertain people.

Charles Herold (cherold) This classic film noir follows Harry Fabian, an ambitious, low-life hustler, as he schemes and betrays people who are themselves betraying other people.Richard Widmark is terrific as Harry from the first scene, where he goes from shiftiness to fury to breezy charm in a few seconds. Harry is a terrific character who oozes desperation and self-delusion. He's smart enough to get himself in trouble but never catches on to the con he's running on himself.The rest of the cast is terrific as well, particularly Stanislaus Zbyszko and Mike Mazurki as angry wrestlers whose fight is one of the movie's highlights.The cinematography is gorgeous, particularly as things fall apart and Harry finds himself in the titular city night. The movie moves briskly through its dark, complex plot, in which bad people keep making bad decisions as though actively chasing unhappiness and disaster. I wasn't sure whether I would give this movie an 8 or 9 rating until that final five minutes, which is incredible. This is a must-see if you like film noir.

felixoteiza Allow me to sound pretentious and say that there are two kinds of people who judge and analyze movies: critics and reviewers. A critic is someone highly educated on the matter, an individual who may hold several pertinent degrees and who will judge a film mainly for its artistic value, regardless of having to consider at the same time the possibility that not even 00.1% of the general population may be interested in watching it. A reviewer, on the other hand, is someone with a more or less average degree of film education who'll try to put together both ends, providing a verdict about the general "watch-ability" of a flick while trying at the same time not to neglect its artistic value. I consider myself a reviewer and that's why I usually give a basic 7/10 to movies that I consider entertaining enough to recommend to anyone--like Anchorman for ex., not precisely an art house regular but one which most people will enjoy watching simply because it's funny. Another one that comes to mind is Stalker, about which critics rave but which I don't consider of any interest for the average viewer. Why I'm saying all this? Because NATC provides the best ex. of a great piece of cinema that will never reach a wide audience because, despite its indisputable artistic merits, it contains flaws that will make it forever a film only for the noir aficionado; the first one of these flaws being the lack of what I would call a "hook". And what's a hook?.See, being the noir genre a very formulaic one—-where everyone and their dog end up dead, in prison, broke, on the lam or at least sad & lonely—each noir has to offer something different, original, to make the general viewer forget that deja vu feeling. Two examples illustrate this well, the best one being Panic In The Streets. Here the bad guy is not a human but a lethal germ which some criminals on the lam are carrying and who Dr. Widmark has just 48 hr. to locate and neutralize. Talk about not one but two hooks! Where The Sidewalk Ends has, as a hook, the cop himself being the son of a gangster; and also he having to conceal his killing of a suspect. Again, not one but two hooks. Maybe now you'll understand why NATC is so "underrated" and why has never reached a wider audience: because it got no hook! (even critics recognize that when stating that, from the very first shots we know that Fabian will be dead by the movie's end). One reviewer offered a different POV that leads anyway to the same conclusion, when writing that the problems of these characters do not come from fate, bad luck, but as the logical consequence of their own personal flaws. We can go even further in the deconstruction and say that there is absolutely nobody here, men, woman, who is being forced to stay in their situation. All of them are free to walk at any moment out of their bad relationships, deals, which is the best way to detect a loose plot. Already we got two flaws and that's only the beginning. Fact is, despite NATC being a great piece of cinematography it lacks what's needed to keep you on the edge of your seat: the underlying tension, the expectations for the shocking or the unlikely to happen. For ex. compare the situation of the two good people here, Gregorious and Mary--who could have walked at any time out of their problems--with that of the characters in the noirs I mentioned, none of which had any choice but to face the situation they were in. That's what makes of these pretty exciting movies to watch while NATC is not. As the reviewer said, you cannot relate to people who are in a mess of their own doing--and from which they can extricate at any time, I'll add. NATC has no real pathos, not Damocles' sword hanging over the head of the characters, except of course that put there by their own greed, loyalty or disloyalty, stupidity, etc. Harry is pathetic, yes, but we don't truly care for him and we can sit back and marvel at his capacity to poison everything he touches. The only one nearly producing some kind of pathos is Gregorious, with his undying passion for Greco-Roman wrestling.As I have neglected about the plot, let's simply say that it's about (very) small time hustler Harry Fabian, U.S. expatriate in London in the early 1950s, who's always concocting ways to swindle people and who finally thinks he got the break of his life when a former wrestler—Gregorious-—comes his way, giving him the opportunity to start a career as a promoter. But money is needed and it is trying to get this money that Harry manages to ruin the life of everyone around him, including his own. As I said, the lack of tension comes from the fact of Harry being a highly unlikable character--I don't know where critic(s) got the idea of him being touching or likable--and that we know from the beginning that he won't outlast the movie. So, while the cinematography is very good, there's little meat for those viewers who use to silently whisper to filmmakers, when sitting to watch their flicks: "Surprise me". There are some good scenes, though, the best one showing an intense wrestling match between Zbyszko's Gregorious and Mazurki's Strangler and then the old fighter, who had spent all his energies in winning it, dying on his son's arms. They both make for the most climactic part in the movie. In all, recommend only if you are really into noir. I say 6.5/10, but make it a 7/10 if you really consider Gregorious' passion for traditional wrestling a hook.

classicsoncall For a 1950 film with a title like "Night and the City", I was really expecting more in the way of the noir genre than what the picture delivers. It has some of those elements to be sure, but the story is set in London, and the idea that it veers off into pro wrestling territory seemed a bit bizarre to me. Since it did however, I was genuinely surprised to see an old time wrestling great featured prominently in the picture, Stanislaus Zbyszko. Zbyszko was a genuine mat star in the pre-TV era and a world champion who's name was highly regarded by fans the world over. He doesn't appear that imposing in the movie, but he was seventy one at the time and could still get pretty physical when he had to, as in the wrestling scene with Mike Mazurki. Pretty cool for that reason alone.The role of confidence man seems made to order for someone like Richard Widmark. He revives that sly Tommy Udo cackle from "Kiss of Death" in his characterization of Harry Fabian, the slick talking self-promoter who never misses a chance to hit up anyone in his vicinity for a quick loan on the way to his next big score. In his wake he leaves pretty girlfriend Mary as a bystander in his schemes, notably absent for most of the picture even though Gene Tierney is second billed right behind Widmark.It's the unintended consequences of Harry's haphazard plan to corner the London wrestling scene that keeps this film anchored with one foot in noir territory. It seems Harry's always on the run from one desperate situation to another, and when he crosses Herbert Lom's Kristo character by manipulating the father (Zbyszko), he sets himself up for a final dangerous confrontation. Through it all, Mary remains loyal, even though she had every reason not to be.Say, stay attentive and you'll catch that neat movie marquee that promotes "Escape Me Never" with Errol Flynn, Ida Lupino and Eleanor Parker. I'd be curious how Twentieth Century Fox managed to plug a Warner Brothers flick in one of their pictures but it was probably inadvertent. I think it's neat to catch stuff like that in old films; it makes watching them even more enjoyable.You know, I had a thought about the casting after this was over. Mike Mazurki did a pretty effective job as the Kristo henchman and pro wrestler Strangler in the picture. Back in Stanislaus Zbyszko's heyday there was another champion grappler by the name of Ed 'Strangler' Lewis. I'm not sure if they ever wrestled each other although it would have been likely since they were contemporaries. It would have been cool to see Zbyszko against the 'real' Strangler here; I wonder if anyone thought of it.

CineasteWest I waited many years to see this film that had been given new life by a reassessment of the film noir period. "Night and the City" became one of those must-see films which was difficult to catch through normal channels. Luckily, NetFlix recently added it to their list of streaming films and I was overjoyed by the prospect of screening this film. However, as I watched "Night and the City," a gnawing feeling in the pit of my stomach told me something was amiss. Did I have the wrong film? Was the hyper overplayed about this little B&W ditty? Was this film as mediocre as I was making it out be? Well, I did have the right film, but my suspicions were correct in the other two areas. "Night and the City" has some redeeming graces such as excellent photography and some very good performances. But the film's story is pure B-picture hokem. Although it has been "revisited" by the film noir crowd, I think the New York Times original review of the film still stands"Bosley Crowther in The New York Times: "Dassin's evident talent has been spent upon a pointless, trashy yarn, and the best that he has accomplished is a turgid pictorial grotesque...he tried to bluff it with a very poor script—and failed...the screenplay is without any real dramatic virtue, reason or valid story-line...little more than a melange of maggoty episodes having to do with the devious endeavors of a cheap London night-club tout to corner the wrestling racket—an ambition in which he fails. And there is only one character in it for whom a decent, respectable person can give a hoot."I agree completely with this assessment, in fact, I labored to sit through the entire film. It's simply a waste of good direction, acting and atmosphere thrown away on a pointless story. I appreciate the efforts of recent critics to restore the prominence of little films important in the development of the cinema, but this little film noir "gem" is in actuality, a faux stone. One is tempted to make comparisions between it and "The Third Man" (for atmospherics) but "The Third Man" was scripted by the brilliant Graham Greene, while "Night and the City" is more reminiscent of a desperate Bowery Boys plot line than Mr. Greene's thoughtful entertainments.