La città in controluce

I highly recommend the 3 DVD box sets that are now available . Each set has 12 episodes exactly how they were first seen on ABC-TV 45 years ago. The location shooting in and around the streets of New York give a great view of the city in the early 60's. They even have included some commercials as an extra added feature that you can watch after you see the 4 episodes on each disk. But the real treat is the stories, many featuring some of the best all-time character actors of TV and Movies. No high tech, no sex, no graphic violence , no dirty words. Just good old-time TV drama, that seems to forgotten in today's lousy free TV with all of those lame reality shows.

Most of the indoor scenes were filmed at old Biograph/Gold Medal Studio the Bronx. The 50's and 60's were a great time for young , talented actors living in New York. Many good TV shows and movies were filmed at the Biograph and Naked City is among the best.

There was no episode of this show that wasn't riveting & first rate. Every NY-based (I'm NY-based & have been off & on since I was a kid) cop show ever made from Kojak through Law & Order & NYPD Blue is totally derivative of Naked City. Interesting that for the first year the characters were based on the movie & they were great, but the replacements were even better. Just a brilliant brilliant show.

The IMDb lists Paul Frees as the narrator of "Naked City" - the series. But it was my understanding that actor Lawrence Dobkin was the voice behind "There are eight million stories in the Naked City...This has been one of them".

The discs of the show are excellent. You get the rare chance, not only to see some of the talent of yesterday like Roddy MacDowall, Carroll O'Connor, and Maureen Stapleton, but actors doing early roles, some only walk-ons, like Dustin Hoffman as a thief in BAREFOOT ON A BED OF COALS or Peter Falk in a tiny role as a gun man in DEATH OF PRINCES or Gene Hackman as a nervous reporter in PRIME OF LIFE.

The series seemed to be approached by it's writers as New York theater, people talking a bit more emotionally than you would see on LAW AND ORDER. Their characters were delved in, rather than simply being shelved as "good" or "evil" as they do on today's series.

There have been several discs on the show from Image Entertainment and I hope they continue to release them.

I remember this show quite well. I cannot remember any specific story lines but I do know that it was all filmed entirely in NYC the same way that the 1948 movie was. The black and white photography was as good as any theatrical movie of its time. I would venture to say that if this show would be rerun today in prime time, it would be as good any good cop shop being shown today. I would like to see this show put on video.

Few TV shows in history sustained such a high level of acting, production and writing. Naked City was a showcase for up-and-coming stage actors, such as Robert Duvall, Dustin Hoffman, Robert Redford, Ed Asner--the list goes on and on. But leads--Burke, McMahon and Bellaver--were superb. Some episodes were nothing short of breathtaking. A good example is "Hold for Gloria Christmas," starring Burgess Meredith as a Greenwich Village poet. It was filmed entirely in the Village, and the cast included Herschel Bernardi, Eileen Heckhart and--a real treat for theater buffs--a rare appearance by the famed acting teacher and Group theater veteran Sanford Meisner. The best episodes were like that--character studies, filmed in the early Sixties, finely wrought time capsules of a New York that no longer exists.