City That Never Sleeps

Contrary to the croonings of Liza Minnelli and Frank Sinatra, The City That Never Sleeps is not New York, New York but Chicago, Illinois. At least it is in John H. Auer's 1953 movie of that name, sort of a noir-inflected Grand Hotel or Dinner At Eight, that opens and closes with floodlit vistas of the wedding-cake Wrigley Building. Several characters' lives intersect in an urban crime drama that even offers a touch of the fanciful.

Gig Young, at the center, plays a cop who's dissatisfied with his job and with his marriage (his wife, Paula Raymond, makes more money than he does). Off hours, he hangs around a strip club called The Silver Frolics on Wabash Avenue to see, both on stage and backstage, headliner Mala Powers. That relationship is a rocky as his marriage, and she's as unhappy with her lot as he with his (`Whaddaya want me to do? Crawl into a deep freeze?' she taunts him during yet another breakup). Then Young heads to the precinct for the graveyard shift, riding in a prowl car with a new partner he's never met before (Chill Wills, who also plays the unseen `Voice of the City').

During Young's nocturnal tour he meets up again and again with the various players in the plot. There's rich, crooked lawyer Edward Arnold, who blackmails him into burglarizing some incriminating papers; his two-timing wife, Marie Windsor; former magician turned criminal William Talman; his own brother (Ron Hagerthy) who's now Talman's apprentice; his pop (Otto Hulett), a police veteran; and a `mechanical man' (Gregg Warren) who entertains passersby in the Silver Frolics' window.

Some of the ties among the characters are up front, others furtive, to be doled out as the plots thicken. By the end (Poverty Row having learned the lessons MGM taught a couple of decades earlier in the titles cited above), there's tragedy and heartache, reappraisals and reconciliations. There's even a character who vanishes as mysteriously as he materialized – a whiff of the supernatural which curiously fails to leave any influence on the way the stories unfold.

The City That Never Sleeps shows the right breadth for a big, urban story – from Arnold's moderne penthouse to Young's middle-class flat to the raffish alleys running off Wabash Avenue. Director of photography John Russell (later to film Psycho) helps Auer out with some crafty touches (a telephone dial glowing from a flashlight shone upon it comes to mind). It's not a haunting movie, but it's a satisfying one – a title that did Republic Pictures proud.

If you like your mysteries on the strange side, this movie is the one. I keep wondering how they filmed it without any people on the streets. Stock footage to bolster an obviously low budget helps somewhat, but this movie depicts Chicago in the middle of the night, and the only car on the street is the police car occupied by our hero. But this was 1953, so it was a different world at 3:00 a.m. There is a little of "The Asphalt Jungle" in this one--including the crooked lawyer, a pretty woman too evil for comfort, a safe to steal something from and the usual payment at the end. Then there is the twist -- the "ghost" influence -- who is in the middle of the evening's events, and who also narrates. Plus there's a guy portraying a store window mechanical man. Like I said, this is a strange one, but worth a curious look.

In Chicago, the police officer Johnny Kelly (Gig Young) is unhappy with his work that pays low-salary and with his marriage. His wife Kathy Kelly (Paula Raymond) has a better salary and his mother-in-law frequently humiliates him. Johnny was forced by his father Sgt. John 'Pop' Kelly Sr. (Otto Hulett) to join the police, but he intends to quit his job and leave his wife to flee to California with his mistress Sally "Angel Face" Connors (Mala Powers), who dances in a night-club. When Johnny gets cold feet, Sally tells that she will move to California with the small-time actor Gregg Warren (Wally Cassell), who performs a robot in the window of the night-club where she works, and plans a show with her. During the night, the crooked lawyer Penrod Biddel (Edward Arnold) summons Johnny to participate in a scheme to arrest the thief Hayes Stewart (William Talman) and protect his younger brother Stubby Kelly (Ron Hagerthy) that has teamed-up with Hayes. However Biddel is betrayed by his ambitious wife Lydia Biddel (Marie Windsor) along the restless and busy night.

"City That Never Sleeps" is a film-noir with a good story of a cop dissatisfied with his job and wife that has the intention to give up of everything independent of the consequences and go to California with his mistress. The plot has many subplots but the conclusion is moralist and does not fit well to a film-noir. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "A Cidade Que Não Dorme" ("The City That Never Sleeps")

A 1953 Republic gem and a great noir find. This sort of small black and white drama was actually what finished off Republic as TV shows took up this sort of storyline and style, and the studio didn't adapt. Cop Gig Young and burlesque floozie Mala Powers go adulterous and the realism of the noir photography created on actual Chicago streets allow the viewer to be completely absorbed into their cheap backstreet world. This is such an interesting film, and the low budget actually works in its favour......like Monogram's startling DECOY of 1947. Chill Wills appears as a very special and strange character and I won't spoil who he is at all. A very clever and ultimately quite emotional film from a fascinating period in American Cop-dom: 1953...as LA CONFIDENTIAL proved for that city. Find this and relish it, and thank the crummy world of Republic for making it. As a bonus for all us noir-ees, the sensational Marie Windsor is here as well, by the narrowest of welcome margins.

Unless you've the skill of an O. Henry, it's pretty ridiculous to talk about the spirit of a city, even as a generalization. But when that "spirit" takes human form and joins the local police force, really it's too much! Whatever induced scriptwriter Steve Fisher to introduce this bizarrely extraneous element into his otherwise tight little tale of the seamier side of Chicago, it was a mistake.

Fortunately, the assignment was handed to John H. Auer, who was most definitely the class director of the Republic stable. The action scenes here are handled with his usual vigorous finesse and there's plenty of excitement. The movie was actually lensed on location in Chicago, the city's streets made forcefully real by John Russell's deft photography.

Gig Young registers okay as the hero, while Chill Wills is saddled with the "spirit". However there are top performances by seasoned players like Edward Arnold, Marie Windsor, William Talman, Paula Raymond, and Wally Cassell as the mechanical man. Mala Powers is suitably cast as "Angel Face".