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A talky Paramount crime drama in the vein of 'The Asphalt Jungle', set in New York but shot in Hollywood, as dour as the youthful Charlton Heston in his first Hollywood vehicle. Surrounded by producer Hal Wallis with a first rate cast (including the two future stars of 'Dragnet') and delivered with routine excellence by the seasoned William Dieterle, with a glamorous but soulful female opposite number in the shapely form of sequin-gowned torch singer Lizabeth Scott (and stalked through much of the film by Mike Mazurki the way Mike Hammer was by Dr. Soberin in 'Kiss Me Deadly').

Dark City (1950)

A surprise, really great. It's not quite a B-movie, though it has some of the honesty and simplicity of a lower budget film. And it has a whole host of terrific actors, including Charlton Heston in his first Hollywood film.

Did I just say Heston was terrific? Yes, here he is, a strong, stubborn, Heston-like character, well cast and well directed and beautifully filmed. And he's at the center of a plot that has several large twists that all make sense, and some great tension throughout. Except for two or three key moments where Heston (or some other actor) does something not quite plausible, the timing and direction by William Dieterle is superb.

The leading woman is a common type in post-war movies, a woman trying to make a living singing in a night club, and she is played with restrained simplicity by Lizabeth Scott. This gives the movie a chance to feature several songs, which she performs herself (Scott even recorded an album in 1957).

Beyond the truly engrossing story, where an unseen killer is on the loose thanks to the greed of a group of backroom poker players, the movie is held together but a half dozen terrific performances. The poker players themselves, including Heston and Ed Begley, are petty and greedy and eventually scared. The man they dupe, a visiting nice guy, is Don DeFore, who pulls it off brilliantly. There are even two guys who later became steadies in "Dragnet." And then there's the detective played by Dean Jaggar, and this talkative, philosophizing, good-guy investigator actually manages to see what's going on right away. Then the cat and mouse game begins.

Dark City would probably be an unknown film today if it were not for the fact that it introduced Charlton Heston in the starring role in his very first film in Hollywood. If not for that it would rate as a passably good noir thriller.

In fact Dark City did not even lead to Heston getting his real screen break in his second film. After having done Dark City, Heston just happened to be passing by Cecil B. DeMille's trailer, one of many contract players toiling in the last decade of the big studio system at Paramount. DeMille who liked tall leading men for his films and had made up his mind to cast an unknown in the role of circus boss in The Greatest Show On Earth saw Heston and his height got him the part. Later on DeMille learned about Dark City and had it run for him and was convinced even more.

For a man who played such noble characters later on screen, Dark City presents Heston as a cynical gambler whose bookie joint got raided. Needing some working capital to get back on their feet, Heston, Jack Webb, and Ed Begley find a sucker in the person of Don DeFore and rope him into a poker game. DeFore loses his shirt and when he signs over money that isn't his to cover his debts, he later kills himself.

That sets psychotic older brother Mike Mazurki on the trail of those responsible. And Heston is desperate to get some kind of line on the brother before he winds up dead.

Part of the reason Dark City isn't a better film is precisely because Heston is not a nice guy. There certainly is no rooting interest in what happens to him. Especially when he starts romancing DeFore's widow Viveca Lindfors in an attempt to get information on Mazurki.

The film was later remade taking it out west as Five Card Stud with Dean Martin in the Heston role and Robert Mitchum taking Mazurki's part. The victim in this case was a card cheat who the other players lynch, though Dean Martin protests that. Doing it that way made you care more what happened to Martin than what eventually will happen to Heston.

Lizabeth Scott as nightclub singer/girl friend of Heston, Harry Morgan as a retainer at the bookie joint, and Dean Jagger as the homicide cop round out the cast.

It's interesting to speculate though what kind of turn Charlton Heston's career would have taken if Cecil B. DeMille hadn't spotted him that day on the Paramount lot.

Dark City is likely most notable as being Chuck Heston's film debut. But it's also worth seeing for then-supporting actor Jack Webb (actually quite good) teaming with Harry Morgan, some 16 years before they'd pair up in the color reincarnation of Dragnet 1966. It's also significant in the script acknowledging the ugly possibilities of returning to post-WWII society (albeit without the impact of the vaguely similar theme of 1932's I Am A Fugitive Of a Chain Gain and WWI, or the more recent The Best Years of Our Lives). With the talent involved I'd expected a noir classic... but Dark City solidly misses the mark. What's wrong? I can name 3 things: The subplot involving grieving widow Viveca Lindfors is all wrong and slows the picture down to a crawl (and frankly it makes Heston look creepy in the pursuit of her--- without giving away why). The suspense of the mystery homicidally-inclined brother just isn't there. And I personally hated the lip sync'd intrusion of Lizbeth Scott's songs (I found myself saying "why weren't these whittled down in the editing room?"). Director William Dieterle's career was inexplicably on a slide by 1950 and his work here could best be described as yeoman-like. There's absolutely nothing wrong with any of the performances... it's just the script needed about 20 pages tossed and the musical numbers axed.

Charlton Heston is wonderful as a gambler with a conscience who plays a fixed game of poker with his war buddy and in turn is accused of the murder in which the companion actually committed suicide. The supporting cast is equally great in this stereotypical 1950s film noir. Far from Heston's best, but still an very above-average film debut.