Les forbans de la nuit

"Night and the City" was the final film for Jules Dassin in the U.S. before being blacklisted. He eventually moved to France but didn't make another film until 1955. Though he is best remembered for the films he did with his wife, Melina Mercouri, this is one of his great movies, a very gritty film noir with London as its background.

Richard Widmark plays Harry Fabian, a low-life con man who makes money as a tout for a club, i.e., he seeks out male tourists and gets them to spend their money there. The club is owned by Phil Nosseross (Francis L. Sullivan) and his wife Helen, who hates her husband and wants to start her own business. Working there is Fabian's girlfriend (Gene Tierney) who loves him in spite of the fact that he's constantly borrowing or stealing money from her.

Harry hits on a scheme to break into wrestling promotion in London. Unfortunately, Kristo (Herbert Lom) has it sewn up. Though his father (Stanislaus Zbyszko, a real-life wrestler) was a great wrestling champion doing Greco-Roman boxing, Kristo does not promote it. This has actually caused a rift between father and son, and Harry moves right in. With the elder Kristo on his side, Harry gets his chance to promote Greco-Roman wrestling. He gets the needed money by promising Helen that he will get her a license to open her business, though the building supposedly can't be licensed for another year. The results of Harry's project lead to tragedy as he brings everybody down with him.

Filmed in black and white only adds to the grittiness of "Night and the City" as Harry runs through London. The film moves as swiftly as he does, leading to the inevitable but exciting climax.

This was a powerhouse role for Richard Widmark, who is a slimy, desperate, and fast-talking Harry. The problem with Harry is, he's really not that good of a con man. He's sloppy. He can get guys into the club but that's about it. He rubs the wrong people the wrong way, and he makes everyone angry until finally, he's a complete untouchable as Kristo chases after him. Widmark gives us a perfect portrait. Tierney is in the film only at the request of Zanuck, who wanted to distract her from her personal problems; she has a surprisingly small role. Herbert Lom is fantastic as Kristo. Stanislaus Zbyszko, whom Dassin sought out, gives a poignant performance as Gregorius the Great. The wonderfully talented Googie Withers is great as the cold and sophisticated Helen. You totally believes she loathes her husband. And Sullivan's Nesseros is easy to loathe as a wealthy worm who plays both ends against the middle to destroy Fabian. They all end up destroying themselves.

Apparently this film did not get appropriate distribution or something, because it's a great film, now out on DVD, and very few people know it. Hopefully, like "Nightmare Alley," another film that was ill-served by Hollywood, it will continue to gain in cult status. It deserves to be seen.

Recently out on Criterion DVD, with a restored print, this is a very nice example of 1950s film noir, although when it was made the director, Jules Dassin, didn't even know there was a classification known as film noir. In fact, the DVD extras, which include a fairly recent interview with the aging Dassin is as captivating as is the movie itself. Back in the late 1940s when "blacklisting" was a reality, Dassin was essentially told, go to London quickly, make this movie quickly, it may be your last. He made "Night and the City" without ever reading the source material, the book, and the movie is apparently quite different. Two versions were made simultaneously, using the same source film, but with different musical composers and different film editors. The DVD extras contains excerpts to demonstrate some of the differences, including a drastically different ending.

Good movie, worth a viewing for the acting of underrated Richard Widmark who plays Harry Fabian, an American post-war hustler in London. Fabian had big ideas of half-baked schemes and always was hitting up a friend for a hundred quid here, 300 quid there, to finance his latest get rich quick scheme. In the extras we learn that Gene Tierney was requested for the part of Fabian's girl Mary Bristol, because she was in a bad way after a recent romantic breakup, and according to Dassin "was suicidal." This movie helped bring her back to a good state.

Googie Withers, an actress I had never heard of, is good as Helen Nosseross, married to the rich but disgusting Phil (Francis Sullivan) and just wanting to get a license for her own night spot and a chance to break away from her husband. She is forced to deal with Fabian, a decision that cost her dearly.

Perhaps the most interesting actor is Stanislaus Zbyszko, one time "world's strongest man" from Poland, in 1949 living in New Jersey. Even though he was unexperienced, he gives a super performance as an old retired wrestler Gregorius the Great, who was grooming his son for a wrestling career. Mike Mazurki plays his nemesis, The Strangler.

Although the story gets a bit complex in the various relationships, it simply distills into Fabian seeing an opportunity to contract Gregorius to feature a wrestling match that will allow Fabian, at least in his eyes, to "control" wrestling in London. But his various scams catch up with him and all does not turn out well, as is the case in a film noir.

My favorite Richard Widmark performance on the screen and probably his best work is Night and the City. This was director Jules Dassin's last film before settling in Europe in the wake of the blacklist and it has a first rate cast tuned to a fine pitch, like an orchestra without a bad note in it.

Harry Fabian is this smalltime American hustler/conman who's settled in London and always working that middle ground netherworld between the law and outright gangsterism. He really isn't a very likable man and the trick is to keep the audience care what's happening to him. This is the test of a great actor and Widmark is fully up to the challenge.

Fabian while working one of his cons overhears a piece of information about the father/son relationship between champion Graeco-Roman wrestler Gregorius the Great and gangster/promoter Cristo who is the London version of Vince McMahon. He cons Gregorius into thinking he wants to promote old style wrestling like Gregorius used to do. That con game sets in motion the events of the film that ultimately end in tragedy.

The cast is uniformly fine, but one performance really stands out, that of Stanislaus Zbyzsko as Gregorius. He was a real professional wrestling champion back in the day when it was real. Zbyzsko invests so much of his own life and reality as Gregorius that he's really something special. His scenes with Herbert Lom as his son are so good they go far beyond the plane of mere acting. It's some of the best work Lom has ever done as well.

How there weren't a few Oscar nominations from this is a mystery for me. For those who like film noir, this should be required viewing. Especially for you Richard Widmark fans.

The rise and fall of small-time hustler Harry Fabain is chronicled in this noir thriller by Director Jules Dassin.

This was Dassin's American swansong, completed just before being named by fellow director Ed Dmytryk before HUAK as a "communist," thus ending Dassin's American career.

He brought to "Night and the City" all the technique he acquired over years of quality movie making. Although born in Connecticut and raised and trained in the US, Dassin's work always had the look and feel of his European counterpart, Carol Reed.

The script here is a decent one with surprise turns, avoiding predictability. Franz Waxman's high pitched score adds excitement to the proceedings and Gene Tierney is a creditable second lead.

Yet it's Richard Widmark on whose shoulders the success of this film ultimately rests. It's not an easy role, as Fabian's character runs the gamut of emotional range as he struggles to wheel and deal his petty schemes amongst assorted lowlife types.

Widmark proves he's well up to the challenge, creating a strong portrait of a small time hood striving for positive payoffs through his callous cleverness.

It's a reminder of how talented and resourceful this actor is, and how he and Dassin meshed to create a film of impact.

Dassin, of course, went on to France after this to engage in a fabulous European period, while Widmark struggled to find scripts worthy of his formidable talents, which turned out to be few and far between.

Night and the City (1950)

*** (out of 4)

Hard-hitting crime film has Richard Widmark playing Harry Fabian, a loser who is constantly getting himself in trouble by either owing money or hurting those closest to him like the girl (Gene Tierney) who loves him. Soon Harry comes up with a scheme to try and take over the underworld of wrestling but an accident leaves an entire mob and city after him. Widmark, in an excellent performance, gets top-billing but there's no question that the real star here is the cinematography by Mutz Greenbaum. The B&W images are so incredibly strong here that they pretty much become their own character as the camera perfectly picks up this underworld full of gamblers, mobsters, drunken fools and hopeless dreamers like Harry. The cinematography is so strong here and director Dassin has no trouble at all building up a very rich atmosphere and it's almost as if you can smell the stink of the streets and you'll feel like a shower just to get all the smoke off of you. The story itself is pretty good because I'm sure everyone has come across a guy like Fabian so it's easy to see his tricks and enjoy his charisma but at the same time any sane person could see what a danger he was to himself. Widmark does a terrific job in the role because he's got a certain charm that you just have to fall for and at the same time he can be such a snake where you want to see something bad happen to him. The screenplay does a great job at really building up his character as we see his good and bad qualities and Widmark hits all the right notes with them. Tierney is excellent as well as his tortured girlfriend. Googie Withers, Herbert Lom, Hugh Marlowe and Francis L. Sullivan are all terrific as well. Back to the cinematography, the final scenes with Widmark running around London trying to escape are breathtakingly beautiful. We've seen countless chase scenes before and since this movie but the one here is a prime example of getting it done right.