Event

Naked City (1948)

Presented by Glenn Andreiev, Film Critic (Films in Review). All films in this series will be projected on DVD in the Cinemas Sky Room Cafe.

This innovative docu-drama film noir is the creative blueprint for later police procedurals like CSI and Law and Order. Barry Fitzgerald (wonderfully cast against type) is a Manhattan homicide detective assigned to a sensational murder of a fashion model (Based on an actual case labeled The Sugar Daddy Murder). The real star here is post-war New York City. This is one of the first films to take full advantage of location shooting on the streets of Manhattan. Director Jules Dassin (Rififi, Never On Sunday) places the viewer in the shops, streets, bustle, and sounds of a 1948 New York that is both long gone and still very familiar. Dassin caps this thrilling film with an exciting chase and gun battle on the noisy, abyss-like Williamsburg Bridge.

USA, 1948, 96 min., b/w