La brigade des stupéfiants

Good gritty docu-drama of the procedural sort made popular by The Naked City (1948). Here we follow a Customs agent (Rober) and a Treasury agent (Brady) as they track down a gang of narcotics smugglers headed by a hirsute Yul Brynner in his first film. Unlike most docu- dramas of the period, this one is not overly diverted by procedure. Instead, the drama plays out in pretty tense fashion. Happily, the rather complex storyline is fashioned smoothly by director Benedek, despite the many segues. Then too, the live shots of New York are especially revealing to a non-New Yorker like myself, even if they are decades old.

The faces in the movie also furnish a boost. There're the three gimlet-eyed hard cases (Challee, Stevens, Kellogg), the exotic looking Brynner, and the two meek-looking fall-guys (Blake, Carter), while Rober and Brady are appropriately clean-cut and strong-jawed. Brynner, of course, is particularly notable for his effortless accent and Euro-Asian appearance. The latter seems appropriate for a time when the Cold War was heating up. Thus Hollywood's lauding law enforcement at a tense time comes as no surprise.

Except for Brynner and a couple jarring scenes as when Brynner turns on the disloyal Stevens, there's nothing particularly memorable here. Just solid entertainment done in highly competent fashion.

Sporting a head of dark, wavy hair that paradoxically emphasizes his Mongol heritage, Yul Brynner plays a debonair drug runner bringing heroin into the U.S. (We know he's a monster from the 78s of dissonant, avant-garde piano music -- Prokofiev? Shostakovich? -- he's forever playing.) When a bribed purser from a luxury liner surfaces in New York harbor with his throat slit, Brynner's fiancee/accomplice (K.T. Stevens) starts running scared and meets up with a narcotics agent (Scott Brady). Bad mistake, which Brynner swiftly and coldly corrects. The investigation heats up both on shore and on water, taking a creepy, and unexpectedly Bohemian, turn toward a cabaret emcee called Dolly (Arthur Blake) who cracks jokes and does Charles Laughton impressions with a monkey on his back. His mistakes, too, prove unpleasantly fatal. Moving closer to the heart of this particular darkness, Brady poses as someone in the drug racket, and comes close to bringing it off.... Even though, despite Russian-born Brynner's playing the villain, there's not a whisper of Soviet conspiracy in Port of New York, it eerily foreshadows both the black-and-white brutality and the smug self-righteousness of the Red Scare cycle. (In the minds of the public and elected officials, during this springtime of McCarthyism, narcotics and Communism were pretty much the same thing.) Though it lacks the ambiguity of fully developed characterizations, the movie succeeds fairly well on its own, straightforward terms -- especially in turning an over-romanticized New York into the raffish port city it essentially is, or was.

Port of New York is directed by Laszlo Benedek and written by Eugene Ling. It stars Scott Brady, Richard Rober, Yul Brynner and K.T. Stevens. Music is by Sol Kaplan and cinematography by George Diskant.

Two federal agents work to crack a gang of murderous drug dealers who are operating out of the Port of New York.

The strengths here are obvious, Diskant's photography provides atmospheric dread, the location shooting of New York is superb, and the smoothly villainous portrayal by Brynner is on the money and sets him on the path to the "A" list. Pic is kinda semi-documentary in style, complete with narration of course, and it's often violent enough to keep one hooked to the end.

Minor film noir but not without merits. 6/10

Port of New York finds Scott Brady and Richard Rober, a pair of Treasury agents on the trail of some heroin smugglers in one of the earliest films I know that seriously dealt with that subject. In an early role way before his movie stardom is Yul Brynner as the chief villain of the piece.

This would be a most obscure film if it were not for the fact that it contains Yul Brynner's screen debut. At the time Brynner was 29 years old and working on and off Broadway and it would be another two years before his breakthrough part in Rodgers&Hammerstein's The King and I.

For those who are used to the hyper-masculine Brynner in such films as The King and I, Taras Bulba, and The Ten Commandments, Port of New York is a radical departure from casting. Brynner plays it fey in this one, he's a most epicene, but very deadly crook. I have to say that when he came to Hollywood for good seven years later he never played a part like the one he has in Port of New York ever again in his career.

Brady and Rober make a pair of stalwart government agents and K.T. Stevens is just fine as Brynner's luckless girlfriend. Best performance in the film is that of Arthur Blake who plays a nightclub comedian and another luckless individual who gets in way over his head in the rackets. Blake's performance is similar to the role Zero Mostel had in The Enforcer the following year.

Port of New York was shot in New York and it contains shots of things long gone like an elevated train station at Canal Street. That familiar voice you hear narrating is that Chet Huntley before he teamed with David Brinkley to become NBC's nightly news anchors and rating's leaders in that field for years. You'll also see Neville Brand in a small role as one of Brynner's henchmen.

Port of New York is not a great noir film, but entertaining enough and nothing the cast or crew have anything to be embarrassed about.

Had a chance to sit down and watch PORT OF NEW YORK some time ago and I have to say that this is a terrific little noir/crime/thriller! Told in "documentary style" as in such films as HOUSE ON 92ND STREET, THE NAKED CITY and HE WALKED BY NIGHT, the movie is swiftly paced, violent with a decent amount of suspense and plenty of fisticuffs. Scott Brady and Richard Rober play a couple of federal agents, one a customs agent and the other a treasury agent out to stop the distribution of illegal "contraband", i.e., opium, that came in on a ship but was smuggled off by drug dealers. The leader of the drug operation is Yul Brynner, sporting a head of dark, wavy hair and appearing in his first film role I believe. Brynner is suave and refined and listens to avant-garde piano music but it is clear that he is also quite cold and violent as the bodies start to pile up. Plenty of action to keep one interested and wonderful direction from László Benedek. The real star though is cinematographer George E. Diskant. Filmed entirely on location in New York City, the film bursts to life with magnificent images of the Big Apple and some truly wonderful shots of the NYC maritime scene. This is a rather obscure, "B" noir/crime film that was a pleasant surprise and a movie that all fans of the genre should check out.