Cry of the City

In New York, when the cop killer Martin Rome (Richard Conte) arrives in the hospital badly wounded, the lawyer W.A. Niles (Berry Kroeger) unsuccessfully tries to convince him to confess the robbery of a collection of jewels and the death of the owner. Along the night, Martin's girlfriend Teena Riconti (Debra Paget) sneaks and visits him. Later Niles threatens Martin telling that he would catch Teena to force her to assume the other crime. When Martin escapes from the hospital, Lieutenant Candella (Victor Mature), who is an old friend of the Rome family, investigates the case and has to chase Martin.

"Cry of the City" is a moralist police story, with the fight between good, represented by Lt. Candella, and evil, represented by Martin Rome. Both characters have the same origins in the lower class neighborhood, but follow different paths of law: while Candella accepts to earn a low salary and "sleep well at night", the manipulative Martin uses people and prefers to taste the pleasures of life whatever the final price is. Their duel has a predictable and corny conclusion, but the story is engaging and supported by a beautiful black and white cinematography and good acting. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Uma Vida Marcada' ("A Marked Life")

Note: On 20 Dec 2018, I saw this film again. Now my vote is eight.

With his silky manners and glittering eyes, Richard Conte was a prince among hoodlums: elegant, magnetic and sharp as a shiv. As the mugs and roughnecks of the early thirties evolved into more sophisticated postwar gangsters, Conte's regal bearing gloved the gangster's raw aggression in smooth style. (Significantly, he was one of the first Italian-American leading men in Hollywood.) Conte always looks like he's plugged into some private source of electricity, like you could get a shock from touching him. He needs that intensity here, since he plays a wounded criminal who spends most of the movie lying in bed or limping around, dragging a gunshot-riddled leg and crumpling with pain. He still manages to radiate menace and charisma, threatening or seducing everyone who comes near him.

Plot-wise, CRY OF THE CITY is that old chestnut about two boys from the same neighborhood (New York's Little Italy, presented with far more nuance and authenticity than Hollywood's usual spaghetti-with-meatballs style) who grow up on opposite sides of the law. Lieutenant Candella (Victor Mature) pursues Martin Rome (Conte) relentlessly after he escapes from a prison hospital; Rome is determined to clear his girlfriend of suspicion in a jewel theft by finding the real culprits. The plot is just a scaffolding to support a series of scenes in which Rome and Candella alternately vie for leverage and influence over an eclectic parade of supporting characters, all of whom seem driven by fear or greed. Desperation inhabits the city like weather. Director Siodmak, one of the masters of film noir, suffuses the film with a dark mood, atmospheric locations, and those corrupted personal transactions that define the genre.

In a hospital in the middle of the night a priest murmurs and family-members weep quietly over a dying man who is chained to his bed—Martin Rome has just killed a cop in a shoot-out. Later, after he has escaped and collapsed again, his girl (Shelley Winters in a leopard-print coat) enlists an unlicensed foreign doctor to treat him in the back seat while they drive around damp city streets, using neon signs for light. Stolen jewels get stashed in a locker in a subway station. Marty almost meets his match in a massive, burly masseuse (Hope Emerson), who looms over him as he works his bright-eyed, caressing charm. Their scene together is funny, scary and perversely titillating all at once, as the mountainous woman starts to massage his back and then gets her hands around his throat. Sadder is Marty's seduction of a plain, middle-aged hospital nurse who is burdened, we later find out, with a nasty, selfish, annoying old mother. At one point Candella reads off to Marty a list of all the former girlfriends the cop has had to look up, and Marty amusingly reacts to each name with regret, embarrassment or fondness. For this tough guy, sex appeal is as powerful a weapon as a gun or a knife—sometimes it's the only one he has.

All the time we're rooting for Marty—at least I was. CRY OF THE CITY perfectly demonstrates how easily movies can mess with one's moral compass. Marty is a killer and a selfish, remorseless crook, but his élan and vulnerability make him an irresistible underdog. His adversary, Candella, is a self-righteous moralizer, a monomaniacal Javert whose hatred seems inspired more by his enemy's charisma than by his crimes. Victor Mature's heavy, stolid presence sharply contrasts with Conte's proud, dazzling quickness. Someone once described Mature as an intelligent actor cursed with the face and physique of a dissipated life guard; I forget who wrote that, but it hits the nail on the head. The poor guy *looked* like a bad actor—all beef and no brains—even though he wasn't. Here his scenes with the Rome family are intended to soften his character, and he does have likable moments, but the way he turns them all—finally even the kid brother—against Marty only increased my sympathy for the endangered outcast. His accusation that Marty uses people is fair enough, but he lays it on too thick; it wasn't Marty's idea to enlist the illegal doctor or the "trusty" who helps him break out of jail. Booming, "Stop in the name of the law!" Candella embodies implacable authority, and who could root for that?

I like to think that in real life superficial concerns like these wouldn't get in the way of my knowing right from wrong, but this is a movie; style is bound to trump substance. Are films like this one—made under the Hays Code, when movies were not allowed to openly glorify criminals—deliberately subversive? The script says one thing, but the casting says another. In a way, that hypocrisy is essential to noir, an under-the-radar phenomenon that made caustic comments about human nature while ostensibly endorsing the Ten Commandments. For Martin Rome, a premature death isn't too high a price to pay for all the fun he had breaking the rules. And a clichéd ending is not too high a price for the pleasure of this movie.

Had Cry Of The City been done at Warner Brothers in the Thirties this would have been perfect material for a James Cagney/Pat O'Brien film with the story of two childhood friends, one who goes into the police force and one who goes into a life of crime. Of course they would have to have been Irish because neither Cagney or O'Brien would have made convincing Italian protagonists as Cry Of The City has in its leads.

And the leads are Victor Mature and Richard Conte. Mature is good as the upright cop who makes it personal to go after Richard Conte who has now committed the ultimate sin, he's killed a cop. But like a film a year earlier for Mature, Kiss Of Death, the film is dominated by Richard Conte who plays a charismatic and fascinating villain just as Richard Widmark did in Kiss Of Death.

Unlike Widmark who is a loner, Conte is charming and is ruthless in his use of that charm. The film opens with him seriously wounded after shooting a police officer. But he recovers and is in a prison hospital awaiting trial. It's the death penalty for sure, but Conte does in fact charm his way into an escape (I won't say how) and from then on because of his wound has to rely on a lot of help including his own family.

Some other standout performances including an old girl friend, Shelley Winters whom he has obtain an unlicensed physician to tend him. Hope Emerson who is as evil as she was as the prison matron in Caged, plays a masseuse who Conte uses to obtain traveling money as the woman is quite mobbed up. Tommy Cook plays Conte's hero worshiping younger brother who realizes just how much he and the family were being used in the climax.

Most of all there's Berry Kroeger who plays one of his usual slime ball characters as a criminal attorney who indulges in a bit of criminality himself most discreetly behind the scenes. Kroeger split parts like that with George MacReady back in the day and is always fascinating to watch.

Most of all there is Richard Conte who should have merited Oscar consideration in one of his best screen performances.

I think this is an underrated (and under-publicized) film that sports an interesting story. Yes, it's a typical one of its day in that it highlights two boyhood friends who wind up on the opposite side of the law ("Angels With Dirty Face," etc.) but it is well done.

Victor Mature "Lt. Candella") and Richard Conte ("Martin Rome") both do a very credible job as the good and bad guys, respectively.

Shelley Winters, Debra Paget and Hope Emerson all provide solid female acting support in this little-known film noir. Emerson ("Rose Given") might be the least known of the three, but not to me since I am a big fan of the Peter Gunn TV series of the late 1950s in which she played a key role.

With film noir making a comeback in recent years, I hope someone puts this movie out on DVD.

Cry of the City has good performances by Richard Conte and Victor Mature. Conte is great with his soft-spoken voice and shifty eyes. The best scenes though are with the bigger-than-life HOPE EMERSON! Her entry down the long corridor, eating the pancakes, and trying to strong-arm Conte are all memorable, cult-ish moments.