Night and the City (With Glenn Andreiev)

In this episode, we talk with filmmaker Glenn Andreiev about the 1950 noir Night and the City. We talk about director Jules Dassin, the plot; the cast, and themes of the film. We also discuss the 1992 remake starring Robert DeNiro and Jessica Lange. 
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Our guest has appeared on the podcast many times. Be sure and click on the link below to help Glenn with his next movie. 

https://www.gofundme.com/f/long-island-70s-film-on-lis-1970s-music-and-club-scene

Thanks for listening! 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Oh, there we go. Hello, everyone, and welcome to Cinema Chat with David Heath. And I am your host, David Heath, and uh we talk about movies from every era and just about every genre on the podcast. And uh and I am happy to announce that I have my uh friend, uh director, movie maker, uh all-around smart guy, uh and good guy, uh Glenn Andrev. Uh Glenn, and welcome back to the show for I don't know, like the ninth or tenth time or something like that.

SPEAKER_06 0:34

I stopped taking count. Um but anyway, yeah, it's great to be here, David.

SPEAKER_00 0:39

Yeah, yeah, you are uh you are you are the best. Uh so uh of course you did, you know, you did allow me to be in one of your movies for uh a um uh a moment. You you can if you listen very closely, everybody that knows my voice can hear my voice on the on the on the documentary. Um uh well so what are you working on right now, Glenn? We're we're gonna talk about night in the city in a minute, but uh I I want to know what you're doing now.

SPEAKER_06 1:07

I'm still you know working very you know very diligently on uh excuse me, Long Island 70s. It's all about the music and movie scene of Long Island of the 1970s. And kind of like the weird, you know, even like the weird stuff that was happening on Long Island in the 70s, including that particular house in uh Amberyville. Oh uh and you know, a lot of let's say the mob uh stories that occurred in Long Island. Um I I just say no matter how innocent you are, if you lived on Long Island uh during that period, you had some interaction with the mob.

SPEAKER_00 1:52

Yeah. Interesting.

SPEAKER_06 1:55

No helping that.

SPEAKER_00 1:58

Yeah, I I of course I live in Kansas City, and and when if you were around when the movie we're about to talk about was made, and then a little bit before that, uh you were probably doing business with the mob and didn't didn't know who it was necessarily. I remember one time uh the when I was a little kid, uh there was this there was this restaurant. We'll just leave it unnamed while we're recording, uh, but there was this restaurant uh that I really wanted to go to uh because it had uh like a cartoon pig on the on the uh sign. I I said, Dad, why can't we go to that restaurant? And he he said uh the mafia owns that. I'm like six. I got I don't know what the mafia is. I don't know what that is, dad. And he had a very tough time explaining to me what the mafia is, um, you know, because I'm a little kid. Um yeah.

SPEAKER_06 2:56

We had like this one really brief thing, and my uh one of my neighbors when I was growing up uh in East North Fort Long Island, uh he, you know, everybody kind of felt okay, his family's heavily mob connected.

unknown 3:13

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_06 3:13

You wouldn't know it because his suburban house looked just like my house, looked like my friend's house. They just blended in perfectly. But somehow they were all mobs, so everybody's like, okay, if we play baseball, we play any game, let him win. I mean, we're all like 11 years old, like, yeah, yeah, okay, freeze tag, no, he's gotta win.

SPEAKER_01 3:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 3:38

He's like, okay, if he loses freeze tag, we're gonna get like knocks on the door at two o'clock.

SPEAKER_00 3:43

It was when I when I was a kid, uh, there there was there was uh uh uh a girl I had a crush on him at in and in in uh in my school. And for people that uh are uh um mate possibly school childhood friends of mine, uh no, I'm not gonna say the name on the podcast. Uh but but uh the um uh that might be listening at me. Uh but I I remember playing a uh we used to play these games, uh these flashcard games, uh and like where you learn your multiplication multiplication tables, and uh, you know, eight times four, 32, you know, and I was like the best at it. I was the best at it. And I let this girl win, not because she was part of the mom, but I let her win. So my point is is to tell you this is one of the most difficult things to do is when you know you should be winning, but you're not because you won't allow yourself to do it. And it's very painstaking when you have to lose on purpose. That that did buy uh that losing on purpose did did buy me um a some sort of a um kiss on the cheek or something, though. This is grade school, Gwen. So I you know, uh you get a little excited about the kiss on the cheek. Um, but uh uh uh so um how soon do you think that this uh project that you're doing is gonna be rolled out?

SPEAKER_06 5:21

Oh, it's gonna take a while.

SPEAKER_00 5:23

I mean, it's uh you know, it's one of the um big problems is money right now, just trying to get the I'm gonna put a link in my in the show notes. Uh okay, thanks. Yeah, so uh and I'll put a link on the Facebook page. Uh although Facebook is rather stingy uh uh about uh allowing uh allowing posts that have links uh to trend. Uh they're really good about shadow banning those. Um I don't know if you know that, but you know, if you try to post a YouTube video or something, um it often will just show a link, but it won't show like the little heading that that you normally would see. You know, yeah, the thumbnail heading or whatever. You don't get to see that. Uh and Facebook is real stingy about that. Uh and they I I think they need to become a little more friendly with YouTube. But you know, whatever. But yeah, I'll put a I'll put a link in the show.

SPEAKER_05 6:20

Thank you. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 6:21

Um Night in the City, uh 1950, uh British Noir, uh and and uh of course it stars Richard Widmark, who gives a well of performance. We'll get into that. But where do you remember seeing Night in the City uh the first time? Where uh where were you and what was your what were your first thoughts when you first saw it?

SPEAKER_06 6:47

Well, I had um caught on the late show uh The Naked City. Jewel director Jules Dasson's uh uh Noir that uh is very famous for one of the first films to really use locations prominently.

SPEAKER_00 7:06

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_06 7:08

Um and I mean it really feels like a European or Italian neorealist film, only takes place in Manhattan.

SPEAKER_04 7:18

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_06 7:19

And, you know, it's this love letter to the sixth class murder mystery.

SPEAKER_04 7:25

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_06 7:28

And I just like you know, I was really curious about Gasson as a director and you know, looking up his filmography and this is one of the films that would show up and finally it showed up on cable, I guess on the movie channel. And I caught it, I just thought it was, you know, I was absolutely floored by it. Um and then I found out a little bit about its sort of turbulent production history. Um and then I was like really like uh you know, really curious when in the early nineteen nineties it was remade.

SPEAKER_00 8:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 8:10

Um by Erwin Winkler, who's one of the producers of the Martin Scorsese films and starring Robert De Niro and Jessica Lang.

SPEAKER_00 8:19

Mm-hmm. And we'll talk about that here.

SPEAKER_06 8:21

Uh but it seems that with um what was the big I guess the big uh thought about Night in the City is that uh uh when Jules Dasson was a college student uh he had joined a communist club.

SPEAKER_00 8:43

Right.

SPEAKER_06 8:44

At his university. And he was in you know involved in uh uh some theater groups that uh their plays like lean you know, moving towards you know Marxism and socialism. And then you have at about the time Naked City is released in 1948, you have the House of an American committee uh UAC hearings trying to weed out the communists in Hollywood. So, you know, they're they're going through everybody, and uh, you know, they find out Jules Dasson, you know, you know his history from almost 20 years prior, and he's brought up to testify and he's basically blacklisted from Hollywood, even though he's making successful movies.

SPEAKER_00 9:40

Um Yeah, Daryl Zanick told told him uh you you you're gonna have to shoot this very quickly and shoot the expensive scenes first because uh they're gonna they're gonna halt production if you if you don't. And I I yeah that I thought that was an interesting story. I don't know if you ran ran across that story.

SPEAKER_06 10:04

I came across that story and basically how you had to make the movie in England.

SPEAKER_00 10:09

Yeah, that's right, yeah, to make it even more yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's that's that's right.

SPEAKER_06 10:15

So it's uh basically it's a British production done with American money.

SPEAKER_01 10:20

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_06 10:21

Um it has um three of the leading stars of the film, leading actors in the film, are American, uh, Richard Whitmart, uh actress Jean Tierney, and uh Hugh Marlowe. Uh the rest is a uh prominently British cast.

SPEAKER_00 10:41

Yeah, Jean Tierney was on the brink in a different way.

SPEAKER_06 10:44

Oh, yeah, no, she was uh amazingly talented and incredibly beautiful actress who uh just had like the you know the most miserable personal life.

SPEAKER_05 10:58

Right.

SPEAKER_06 11:00

Um that uh when she yeah, I guess the very quick story, when she was uh uh doing like a war bonds um uh show during World War II, there was this like soldier who absolutely wanted to meet her. I think he gave her a kiss and everything, but what he did, he um he sort of uh ignored a quarantine. He was in the hospital with the measles, the German measles.

SPEAKER_00 11:30

Oh, I didn't know the story. Wow.

SPEAKER_06 11:33

And Jean Kearney was pregnant at the time.

SPEAKER_00 11:36

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_06 11:37

She doesn't tax it, but her unborn child uh caught it. And uh grew you know and was born severely retarded. And it was basically uh I I I think he even like c came up to her and said, you know, I I am uh you know, I'm escaping from you know the medical hospital just to see you. And then he disappeared. So it's like they never really found out who I don't think they ever found out who this person was.

SPEAKER_00 12:13

That is insane. I didn't know that story. I I had no idea.

SPEAKER_06 12:18

And I think it was they may he may have even confessed. I now remember he may have confessed, but you know, but by now it was like eight or nine years later, and she says, I'm not gonna do anything. I don't you know, you know, what what can I do now? Uh so uh yeah, that that took a severe toll on on her, and uh it was basically I believe she got the role in Night in the City just to keep her, you know, busy insane.

SPEAKER_00 12:49

Right, right. So she wouldn't kill herself.

SPEAKER_06 12:52

Right. And she's uh I said she's really good in the film. I mean everybody is terrific in the film. Uh I guess for the people who do not who are listening who may not be familiar with this film, Night in the City, uh give you the plot in a nutshell. Sure. Uh Richard Whitmark plays this over like conman grifter you know, scam artist, uh just living pretty much you know, on the edge is his name's Harry Fabian. And the first time we see him it's like uh loan shark people or thugs are are chasing him all through London. And uh, you know, he what he does he just tries to get little pieces of uh work here and there by uh calling people to go to uh a particular nightclub.

SPEAKER_00 13:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 13:52

And uh so finally he meets up with a aged wrestler. Um aged Greek wrestler and he gets the idea he's gonna promote this um oh pretty much retired wrestler as a fighter. And uh he's gonna like put him against a uh a wrestler played by famous wrestler played by Mike Mazersky uh the Strangler. He goes by the name the Strangler. And it turns out this this um uh older Greek wrestler, uh his son is pretty much the head of the London underworld.

SPEAKER_04 14:44

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_06 14:45

Herbert Long. You know, Fabian's just being told, watch what you're doing. Um you know, Fabian just does all these different scam jobs and con jobs just to get up the money to create a wrestling, you know, sort of like a wrestling venue. Uh, which he does. And uh don't want to really give the ending away, but it like it all really collapses. Um the owner of the nightclub that he does some work for played brilliantly by a British uh character actor named Francis Sullivan.

SPEAKER_01 15:26

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_06 15:27

And you know, this is this big you see him, he's this like big burly guy. He's in uh David Lean's Great Expectations and Oliver Twist. And uh he's like very imposing Yeah, very very recognizable. He uh pretty much he he looks like Hitchcock and sounds like Hitchcock.

SPEAKER_00 15:46

Yeah, it kinda does, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 15:48

But you know, it's just more rough. And at one point, as the film's going to its third act, he he tells Harry Fabian, you know, Harry, you've you know, you worked very hard, you got what you wanted, but you're a dead thing.

SPEAKER_00 16:04

You're a dead man, that's right. Yep.

SPEAKER_06 16:07

And uh anyway, it has uh one of the most grueling wrestling scenes, you know, on a you know, in a ring.

SPEAKER_00 16:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 16:16

Um ever lensed on film, and I'm not ignoring uh uh what is it, Raging Bull or movies like The Setup or Somebody Up There Likes Me. I mean this this is just like one relentless uh brutal scene.

SPEAKER_00 16:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 16:37

And um but what's really interesting about uh Richard Redmark's performance in it is he has these like really manic moments where he just thinks he's gonna be, you know, he's on his way of becoming like a a millionaire. He's always telling his girlfriend Gene Tyranny, because it's like you know, she also works in nightclubs, but she just has you know, she has morals and she's a pretty much a decent person, but he keeps on telling her, I'm going to give you a wor uh a life of ease and plenty. And she'll like get so fed up and she'll say, I don't want a life of ease and plenty. But he always has these like these ideas and he's all full of energy. And then when things come crushing down, I mean he he's he's like a he's like a defeated child.

SPEAKER_00 17:35

Yes.

SPEAKER_06 17:36

So I'm wondering this is this probably film history's uh first um you know view of like a manic depressive or bipolar character.

SPEAKER_00 17:51

Hey, yeah, that's a good point.

SPEAKER_06 17:53

I I did Widmark studied these people. Now I don't know back in 1950 whether there was such a term as bipolar disorder.

SPEAKER_00 18:04

Uh but he turned on a dime several times in this movie.

SPEAKER_06 18:10

I don't know if Widmark may have known somebody who was like that. I mean, I I've known people like that, especially you know, in the film community. Uh you know, like one day they are just like they're gonna conquer the film world.

unknown 18:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 18:30

They're gonna make Tarantino look like uh, you know, Mush, and the next day it's like, you know, they're just down in the dumps. They don't want to leave, get out of bed.

SPEAKER_00 18:42

Yeah. His character reminds me of of uh you were before you and I were recording, we we were talking about Frank Sinatra, and and his character reminds me of Sinatra's character, and some came running a little bit. Uh you know, yeah. Yeah, where he he he he his quote is uh I I'm I'm not poor, I'm broke. Those are two different things, and that's Richard Widmark, his character. Um and and uh and uh and I've I I've been guilty of it myself, uh, you know, thinking, um, my ship's gonna come in, you know. And and he it's it's it's always something that's going to bring him the uh the big check. I'm gonna get some big money. I'm just right here at the cusp of it. And you can't cut me off now because here we are. We're we're gonna make um we're gonna make a million, you know. And that's the way that's the way he behaves all the time. But it's interesting. I I never thought about it. I I definitely thought hear think of the word manic when I hear him, because he's constantly just um he's just constantly full of energy and and moving and talking fast, uh, running. He's doing all these kinds of things, and he's uh but also got those sad moments too, and and um and angry moments, and yeah, he he does it all in this movie, does he not? You know, he he he laughs, he cries. He does everything in this movie. Um it's a tour de force.

SPEAKER_06 20:26

Pretty much, I think this is like more so than any of his other uh you know famous you know early noirs that he does at the period. I mean, well, Kiss of Death, I mean, his character is just you know, just straight out crazy. And uh it was interesting because Kiss of Death has 1947, a different director, Henry Athaway, and I mean here he is, he's you know, this absolute sadist. There's the famous scene where he's trying to get some information out of a wheelchair-bound elderly lady, and he just wraps her up with a uh lamp cord into a wheelchair and then sends the wheelchair flying down the stairs.

SPEAKER_04 21:17

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_06 21:18

Um and this is like when, especially in Hollywood, that psychology was just such it was such a hot thing. So, um I forget what movie it was at the time, but you know, it was the you know it took place in Hollywood and somebody says, Oh yeah, psychopaths, they're selling like hotcakes. And I think it was the you know, the person who was absolutely against it was uh Frank Capra. You know, this whole like showcasing the you know, the psychotic uh which Bill Noir just loved to do. Um but anyway, um here he is. He's uh this uh like I said, he's basically a a bipolar. Um and uh you think about his other sort of person living on the edge, uh Sam Fuller's uh pick up on South Street.

SPEAKER_00 22:22

I I I I saw that the night after I saw this, by the way, um uh last week, you know? Isn't that crazy?

SPEAKER_06 22:31

And it's kind of like his character in Pickup on South Street, he has like a moral compass when as things are happening to Gene Peters, you know, he he wants to you know he wants to help her, wants, you know, he wants to uh you know uh sort of avenge her. Um which he does at the end. Uh no, here it's like, you know, there's there's no moral compass with um Night in the City, and it's such a uh I I mean it's I mean it's such a great example of film noir. Um it is that uh let's say if this film was done fifteen years earlier, and I I believe the story was optioned in the mid-1930s, that there would be like a really good guy character in the film. I guess the only real good guy in the film, and he's kind of ineffective, is the Hugh Barlow character who has a you know the neighbor has a thing for um tyranny.

SPEAKER_00 23:42

And somehow he can't make spaghetti, the the the easiest thing in the world to make.

SPEAKER_06 23:47

I mean, you know, he found that one up, so you know it's like he's not really the best tax in the world. Um so, but anyway, he's um uh he's pretty much the only person who you know who really has a care for uh you know for any anybody else, but there you don't even know, and is it just he has the hots for gene tyranny?

SPEAKER_00 24:14

He kind of disappears pretty quickly, too. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 24:17

Uh-huh. Well, he kind of might well, I'm not gonna give it, but he does wind up at the end of the film.

SPEAKER_00 24:22

Yeah, yeah, that's true.

SPEAKER_06 24:24

Uh but uh and and even like the the aged wrestler, he's uh Gregorious, he is like, you know, there's a bit of a moral compass to him. I mean, he really, you know, he's really not seeing what a loos Harry Fabian is.

SPEAKER_00 24:49

No, because he he hears those compliments, and that's how good Harry Fabian is of a of a con man, uh, is he uh he sat back in in the background and and took some information in his head, didn't know anything about Gregorius, and then he and then he tells him uh how great a wrestler he is. And the way you performed at that one wrestling uh show with uh uh uh you know uh and the other guys say uh, you know, uh, you know, who the who the opponent was. It was just a um a great one. Oh yeah, that one. Yeah, that one. That was a great, and he was just so good. Um, you know, Widmark was good in the in the role, uh, but the character was so good at at sucking people in. All Gregorius heard was the compliments that that Fabian was giving him. He heard those compliments and and he soaked them in, and he's a wrestler. He's he wants to be, you know, he's a he's a performer, and so he he wanted to be honored uh for his performance. And then once you said that to him, you you sucked him in. And and um I I think it's just and he was a r legit wrestler too, right?

SPEAKER_06 26:08

I I uh I believe so, for like maybe even like 40 years before uh yeah the film was made. I mean, his wrestling career goes back to about 1909, 1910. And it's kind of sad that he really doesn't do any other film work.

SPEAKER_00 26:25

Yes, that's right. That's right, yeah, yeah. Because he's pretty good.

SPEAKER_06 26:33

A screen presence. I mean, it kind of almost reminds me of the uh the wrestler in uh Kilbericks the Killing.

SPEAKER_00 26:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 26:44

Uh you know, they kind of look like you know they they could they could be uh you know brothers.

SPEAKER_00 26:51

I did that again.

SPEAKER_06 26:52

That was that that that wrestler's only real film role.

SPEAKER_00 26:57

That's right. I I I did an episode on the killing a while back, as a matter of fact, and uh and it's worth bringing up again just because it's hilarious. Um do you know who was in that movie uh that I had uh 30 years later was extremely famous, but wasn't famous at all at that point. But it was a learned he was a comedian. You knew that was oh Rodney Dangerville. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Rodney Dangerville, yeah, that's right. Yeah. Does it really prove that that's him or is that um when you look close, it looks like him, you know. Um I think I because I I watched it on um I I watched it, I I watched it many times actually, but but when I when I pulled the clip on my phone and were you're able to, you know, scroll and and get a real close view of it, um, it looks like Rodney. Um, you know, and I think it's very believable because he he was trying to get in the in the show business um at the time. So the timeline makes makes a lot of sense. Um it's just that the movie itself, you know, doesn't necessarily make make a lot of sense, but but it it's it's it's quite funny. Um one thing uh when I had Eddie Muller on my podcast, I I really regret not asking him, and I've kicked myself because I have haven't didn't have that opportunity again, and not yet anyway. Um, but one of the things I think is interesting about noir is it's kind of like hair metal from the 80s, like they didn't call it hair metal in the 80s, they they that was a a term that they pinned on them, you know, five and ten years later and and it's and it stuck. But uh I I don't think that people went to the set saying we're making a noir, you know. I I think it just became noir over time. And um it am I off on that? Because I don't think I don't think they knew they were making uh a particular genre.

SPEAKER_06 29:03

I think they No, no, no, no, they they you're you're absolutely right. Yeah. I mean this is pretty much during the war and uh somewhat after the war, you know, of course after the war. Um and I don't know when, you know, have they ever settled on when did film the more no war really begin?

SPEAKER_00 29:25

Yeah, I don't think I think it's like rock and roll.

SPEAKER_06 29:27

I don't think you can quite pinpoint Yeah, it's definitely not Maltese Falcon because Stranger on a third floor, on the third floor with Peter Lori, yeah, a year earlier, that's definitely a noir.

SPEAKER_00 29:39

And I think there's stuff from the 33, 34, 35.

SPEAKER_06 29:43

I'm I can't yeah, the that were noir is a dead end with uh Joel McRae and Humphrey Bogart.

SPEAKER_00 29:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 29:50

That's definitely noir.

SPEAKER_00 29:52

I mean the the whole Yeah, that's right.

SPEAKER_06 29:54

I mean, the whole thing, the the most wanted gangster, you know, in the United States, he comes back to his home turf and he's you know he's had plastic surgery and nobody recognized him, and he just thinks everything's gonna be fine and all that fine and dandy. Uh and he finds out that his girlfriend, Claire Trevor, she's now a hooker. I mean, they they couldn't say that back then. And you know, when he goes to visit his uh uh elderly mom, the first thing she does is like start slapping him around and saying, You you know, uh you dirty dog you.

SPEAKER_00 30:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 30:33

And uh so yeah, you see the war there. I mean, it's you know, who's supposed to be this absolute bad guy. I mean, there's uh if you're gonna start feeling sorry for him, um you know, the dead end kids definitely in there, they're they're very much in the war. Um and then there's one film from 1934, I know we're talking about night in the city, that doesn't get that much attention. And it needs to. It's a movie called Crime Without Passion.

SPEAKER_00 31:10

I've heard of it. I d I have not seen it.

SPEAKER_06 31:13

It's uh 1934 is made independently um and released through Paramount. Uh the writers Ben Heck and Charles MacArthur made the film. And it's uh the first time Claude Rains is really visible all throughout a movie.

SPEAKER_00 31:32

Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 31:33

He he's very young looking, he's got black hair, and uh he plays this uh crooked New Yorker uh uh criminal uh attorney uh and he thinks he uh uh murders his girlfriend. And he's like trying to create all those like different alibis and everything and how he's getting all tripped up and but yet he's thinking, you know, I'm above the law, you know, I'm a super genius, I'm gonna get away with this. Uh what makes the film really unique is the beginning three, four minutes of the movie, uh where you see this montage of uh primarily women being killed, and out of like the blood splatters, and this is a pre-code movie, these fury these theories, these women in these uh diaphenists you know, pretty much see-through gowns, fly out of the blood and they fly over the city, and they're dive bombing uh criminals. And you can find this on YouTube, this crime without passion opening sequence, and you're gonna be like, wow, how did they get away with that back then?

SPEAKER_00 32:56

Yeah, the description I I were just read while you were talking uh described uh Claude Rains uh as a CAD in the and the way you're describing it is a lot worse than that.

SPEAKER_06 33:10

And you know, it's also the the unfortunate thing about the film, I think it's a really interesting film, and it might even be the first noir, uh that the opening sequence I told you about, uh you almost forget about Claude Reigns.

SPEAKER_00 33:30

That's hard to do.

SPEAKER_06 33:31

Yeah, you're kind of like, okay, you know, he's really compelling, but why are these women coming back? Um but anyway, back from Claude to Richard, uh Yeah, he you can definitely feel sorry for him in a sense. You know, it's just and I think that uh that happens in the beginning of the film where uh uh he he's running away from the mob, whatever, uh physically running away from the mob, hides out in Gene Tyranny's apartment, and now you know now he's safe. And what's the first thing he's doing? He's going for her purse trying to steal money.

SPEAKER_00 34:13

That's right. That's right.

SPEAKER_06 34:15

And it's like, okay. And she sees him and you know, she isn't like, you know, get the hell out of my house, you know, you you know, leave my purse alone, you you know, whatever. Uh she's like reminding him, like, remember when things are really nice and she pulls out that picture of uh him looking like very Ivy League and her looking all pretty, oh she always is pretty, on that rowboat.

SPEAKER_00 34:44

Yes.

SPEAKER_06 34:45

I mean, they look like a nice couple, so you're like you know, trying to figure out okay, what happened? You know, and you know, nobody handholds you throughout the movie and say, well, you know, this is what happened, you know, he this is why he's choosing this, you know, life or crime, you know. So, you know, you have to like fill that in, you know, for yourself, and it you know, it really draws you into the movie. Um what's interesting is that there was an American cut of the film.

SPEAKER_00 35:23

That's right.

SPEAKER_06 35:24

And it's the it's the edit that Jules Dasson prefers. Even though the British cut is a little bit longer.

SPEAKER_00 35:34

Well, I I didn't know that. I did I did I didn't I didn't run into that in my research.

SPEAKER_06 35:38

And it's two different music scores. It's um That's right. Uh I forget who did the the British score, but the American score is uh Franz Wocksmith.

SPEAKER_00 35:49

Yeah, and I think it's really good. He did Rear Window and Sunset Boulevard and Rebecca.

SPEAKER_06 35:55

And Brider Frankenstein.

SPEAKER_00 35:57

Yeah, that's right. He did do Brider Frankenstein. That's right.

SPEAKER_06 36:00

And uh it's also very, you know, technically it's a you know really uh really well-made film. I mean, there's this one scene where uh Gregorius' uh son, who runs the the underworld, uh he puts a uh price on Richard Ridmark's head. He says, you know, a thousand dollars, a thousand pounds to whoever brings me Harry Fabian.

SPEAKER_00 36:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 36:28

And it's one of her, you know, one of his uh henchmen goes out in a convertible all throughout London. I don't know if you remember the scene.

SPEAKER_00 36:37

Yeah, oh yeah.

SPEAKER_06 36:39

And he's like zipping from place to place, and supposed to be probably around ten o'clock at night, eleven o'clock at night. But if you look in the background, you could see like it looks like daybreak coming in.

SPEAKER_00 36:54

Oh, that's right, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 36:56

No, and it it it might be a little bit confusing to some viewers, yeah, but I've always like noticed, you know, trying to film at night. You know, when I work in film, you know, work at like, you know, get your night scenes like at dusk. So there's definition against, you know, the s you know you know, the shot the sky shows, you know, behind buildings and trees and everything. You know, don't get that if it's a shot that takes place at midnight, don't get it at midnight, get it like at right about it now, 7 30 and 8 o'clock at night. Um but it it's really like you know, just like this long take. And uh, you know, you're just seeing some, you know, very inventive uh stuff. And but like I said, I don't really give away the ending so much, but uh did I mention, of course, that the um uh Gregorius' son, the guy who's like, you know, the pretty much almost like the godfather of the British underworld, uh brilliantly played by young Herbert Lomb.

SPEAKER_00 38:09

Yeah, everything Herbert Lomb did was brilliant.

SPEAKER_06 38:12

And uh he's he's really good in it. He doesn't he's almost like Don Corleone, he doesn't like really blow up or anything.

SPEAKER_00 38:20

Oh, that's a good point.

SPEAKER_06 38:21

And I mean, especially the one scene where Richard Widmark's trying to like butter him up and explain how he's going to uh basically exploit his father.

SPEAKER_00 38:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 38:35

And he's got that contract that he sells Herbert Lohm, and he's saying, well, this is why, yeah, this is where my big plans are. And Herbert Lohm just like rips up the contract, puts it over Ridmark's head as he's talking and just dubs it.

SPEAKER_00 38:51

Yeah. I never thought about it with the way you put it. It's a he's a Don Coral Don Corleon Titan.

SPEAKER_06 39:02

He doesn't like, you know, uh, you know, flip out because there, you know, he shows he really doesn't have authority. But you know, here he's just like he's very calm, especially when he says, you know, a thousand pounds for whoever brings me Harry Fabian. Um, and then the um the scenes where uh Fabian is being chased by pretty much the entire London under you know underworld by you know, whatever petty mobster happens to catch up to him, it's almost like Night of the Living Dead. It's like almost like a zombie apocalypse. That's awesome. And the one thing I've noticed about Dassin uh is you know, he he made these wonderful noirs, you know, he made uh wonderful, um wonderful caper film or Fifi, um basically like semi-noirs in in Europe, uh uh such as He Who Must Die and another one called The Law with Gina Little Brigida. But then he does a romantic comedy, Never on Sunday, which is with his wife, Marine McCurry, and he cast himself in it, and he's like the you know, and this is like the big moneymaker for him. I think he was yeah, he was nominated for a uh Oscar for direction. Um he ends his career with a uh kind of dismal uh romantic drama with Richard Widmark and Tatum O'Neill in Circle of Two.

SPEAKER_00 40:45

Yeah, I haven't seen it.

SPEAKER_06 40:48

And it's yeah, it's kind of like wow, this is like one of the icons of world cinema to this film. I don't I I can't see how. But the one thing is something about like I said, how the ending feels like a zombie apocalypse. And there's a scene where Rigmark runs into like a watchtower to you know get away from a mobster who also enters the watchtower and slowly coming up, and it's done in like incredible film noir lighting. Um and then now let's go back a little bit. They they never really called it film noir. A lot of these films just were just done with uh on very small budget, so they had very you know, they had less lighting. So it says, okay, we just have very few lights to to work with. Let's make it look really cool.

unknown 41:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 41:47

So it's kind of like where noir lighting began. But like I said, that scene with um Redmark being hunted and the wordless lobster comes into where he's hiding, it's like a horror movie. And I think that's like one of the uh sad things is I think Trules Fast and probably would have like excelled with a horror movie.

SPEAKER_00 42:12

Yeah, because I think you you described a horror movie with with the the ending, and and I uh I think you're right.

SPEAKER_06 42:19

I th I think it would have been yeah I I think like a because you look at his other noir films, um such as his prison film with Bert Lancaster, Brute Force. Early on there's the um the snitch that they all go after. And you know, they sort of you know supported the snitch into like this huge press that's going it's moving up and down. And it's something like straight out of a horror movie.

SPEAKER_05 42:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 42:54

Uh and then the uh assistant warden played uh with pure savism by uh Hume Cronin. I mean, he's like something out of out of a of a of a horror movie where, you know, his chair in his office also has clamps on it's like a torture device. And in fact the first real film that Dasson directed was a short R MGM, The Telltale Heart. Um and then um, Naked City, of course, the the ending, the face off the Williamsburg Bridge. It's almost like the ending of King Kong.

SPEAKER_00 43:46

That's a good point, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 43:48

Um and yeah, it's just like I said, it's just somehow there's just like horror movie imagery and it and uh there's a thing that

SPEAKER_00 44:00

believe in uh the the war film he did with the truck drivers uh thieves highway there's a scene with a uh a truck like running over somebody it's like a monster like handed das in a horror movie he would have like you know he would have absolutely run with it yeah I I think you I think you're probably right you know maybe could he could have made some of those monster movies of the uh 40s and 50s uh I think that would that that'd have been kind of fun um but uh yeah um I I I I uh I I want to talk about the remake in a second but um before I do that I I want to bring up another point uh or some something in the film that we haven't talked about is uh I I don't know how to say her name it is is it uh Guogie Withers is that Googie Withers Googie Withers yeah it was a nickname for her and yeah she had a 73 year uh career a lot of it was on the stage um but she was introduced to the film industry you know uh in middle age uh at middle age and and she just kept performing um all the way till the time she was an old lady uh in in the 90s and uh I love her in this movie so much and oh yeah she's um the uh nightclub owner's uh wife who wants to uh branch out and create you know have her own nightclub yeah I absolutely just I I I'm telling you um I there's some there's something she's the female version of Fabian in my opinion uh not not nearly as not not as bad uh uh not as amoral but uh but but but she she realizes uh okay I'm gonna put all my all my chips in to to um uh this new uh club that I want to open up and um and and when she ultimately you know somewhat of a spoiler alert when she realizes that that her liquor license isn't legit she does exactly what her husband said she would do and of course he you know I I we're not gonna say that what but anyway no she's you know pretty much the conniver and she's pretty much like a a user I mean she's definitely using uh you know her husband played by Francis Sullivan um you know for everything I mean she can't stand him but definitely likes his money yeah that's right that's right uh and the same thing with like Fabian I guess yeah she might have a thing for her uh Fabian but she figures you know I could use I could use him to get what I want the liquor license now that's probably my only like weakness with Night in the City is right there when she's getting her nightclub all ready to go and she's got all of her waitresses there and she's sort of like giving them the uh the speech on how to you know basically how to rip off men of swindle everybody all the men yeah yeah uh and then that that uh young London Bobby comes down and says what are you doing here and she says oh I'm gonna have a you know have a nightclub here and he says oh do you have a license and he shows it she shows it to him and he says okay this looks you know legit everything's in order yeah have a have a drink and he says oh okay all right and then he puts the drink down on the license and since it was like so crudely made it instantly smears it's just awful it's so awful I mean it's like of all places to put you know your drink down you know if if some if I said yeah David here's my license have a drink you gotta put it right on the license it really does kind of uh uh smell wrong and it probably would have worked a little bit better if like you know a little bit of the drink was spilled on the license and the same you know the same thing would have happened. That's that's fair to say that's fair to say but I I I I I I don't know um it's one little nick. Yeah one one little nick I mean you know it's uh it doesn't it doesn't take away even though from the scene in my opinion though because I I I I think uh um I j I just I just love uh uh Googie Withers uh I I I know I've seen her in a in something before later in life um and she's in um a little big part in uh the lady vanishes right oh okay yeah okay Margaret Lockwood's friends in the beginning of the film i i certainly didn't know that was her but I I did do remember seeing that on her IMBD and I remember you know when the cast list comes up it says Doogie Withers and underneath it says by special arrangement by whoever whatever and then she's in a really interesting British horror movie from 1945 called Dead of Night Yeah um which was you know multi-episode uh horror film yeah and she's in one of the better episodes and you know she you know occasionally comes up an hour now and again and now she was ignored so when she passed she was dame googie wizards yeah I okay so you know it's but yeah here she's like you know yeah she's just like this narcissistic you know I know it's crazy uh but uh she she I think she is the the female Fabian I I I think he I think she does the same crap he does uh and and and it just with a a more femin a feminine touch and you know and because what she would do would work on me you know that would work on me you know and when when when she left her husband was devastated and and this is a hard man you know but he was devastated you know and and and I I think uh it's it's you know it it's a real tale of how men and women can you utilize their their charm to get what they want and um you know we obviously see more of Widmark and his Fabian character but but I I I I love how the the script is flipped uh with with her um but um um that can segue into uh the the remake with De Niro and Jessica Lang um it's interesting because I think I feel like they I'm sure it wasn't economical um but but when you look at the remake and you see uh Jessica Lange she's playing uh both of the female uh uh main characters uh at the same time basically she's doing the Googie Withers part and doing the Gene Tyranny part um and you know it it that did I miss something or is that kind of what what that what that makes that makes sense it's kind of also curious that uh they're remaking a film that the general public would not know.

SPEAKER_06 52:13

I mean those film fanatics as film noir people would know okay they're remaking Night in the city. Mm-hmm Yeah they're also calling it Night in the city and of course um the nineteen fifty Night in the city takes place in like postwar London. Um here it's uh you know nineteen nineties uh New York sort of like a post Giuliani New York um and I think the two films really complement one another. You could actually watch both of them back to back. I mean Fabian uh you know Robert De Niro he plays a uh sort of an ambulance chaser attorney uh named Harry Fabian.

SPEAKER_00 53:05

Yeah and he's ever he's he's he's every bit as full of it as the as the witmark Fabian.

SPEAKER_06 53:11

And I mean there's a scene early on where um what is it he's defending this uh prize fighter who was beaten up by somebody in the nightclub and he just you know in the beginning of the film he sees that story in the newspaper and he's basically telling the uh the the prize fighter who says no I'm fine and you know he's basically saying no I'm gonna take you to a specialist he's gonna tell you how you feel yeah and there's this great scene where uh they go to the court you know they go uh into the courtroom to settle the case and the judge is looking at this price fighter who's like seven foot something and the um the perpetrator who's like five foot four and the judge this woman says Fabian just get the F out of my courthouse yeah with your nonsense. Yeah yeah same thing it's like both Fabians have this reputation throughout town as you know being this uh grifter and then the same thing happens uh you know he's involved with this uh aged uh you know this aged boxer and he's trying like every scam and you know crooked thing just you know to get the money to get the uh you know the fight ready to go um the interesting thing about Night in the City I think it may have done pretty well in the box office it's became a a hard film to find yeah I don't remember how I located it uh to be honest uh I I remember being in a movie theater when I lived in uh Jacksonville Florida and I first knew of it when it came up as coming attractions I'm like oh Lord they're remaking Night in the City and so I made sure I saw the movie and I actually bought the DVD of it I mean the VHS of it and I I really liked it and you know it has like a really strong opening like I said it's uh I believe it's directed by Erwin Rinkler who produced so many of the Martin Scorsese films of the 80s and 90s so it really has like a Scorsese feel to it.

SPEAKER_00 55:48

Yeah and it's and it's it's probably not completely coincidental that that De Niro was coming off of uh another uh a remake of Cape Fe and at which of course Scorsese directed the the remake and I don't think that's probably completely uh a non-coincidence uh you know uh but I I uh how would you compare the the those those two movies uh the the original Kate Beer and the and the uh remake to Night in the city and the remake because I think that there's a real almost a direct comparison because De Niro is in both the remakes so I I think it's kind of interesting. Uh how how do you uh come uh how do you come out on on those two I mean how how do you compare Cape Fear and then how do you compare uh Night in the city to the original?

SPEAKER_06 56:50

Well I think in uh Cape Fear it's uh Robert De Niro he's playing like the same flea ex con uh Max Cady yeah that Robert Mitchell played in the 1962 original but you know he's doing something different. Uh-huh he twisted it um you know he's um in the original um Max Cady spent some time in jail and I think he probably learned a little bit about the law but uh De Niro becomes more like a law scholar and uh something like of a historian.

SPEAKER_00 57:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 57:28

Uh and uh you know it it's you know the the Scorsese version gets to be more brutal than the uh uh Robert Mitchum version uh what's kind of fun of course is that Robert Mitchum and uh the hero of the 62 film Gregory Peck they both have uh roles right in the um you know in the remake. Yeah as as does balsam Martin Balsam Martin Balsam yes yeah yeah and um I'm sure if Jelly Savallas was still alive they probably would have thrown him in there they would have they he and I I think yeah I think they would because the um I the I I I know the the the the little girl in Cape Pierre uh passed away at a very young age and and I don't I'm trying to remember the wife's name in Cape Pierre she's oh Polly Bergen.

SPEAKER_00 58:29

Yeah yeah there you go did such she did a great job and uh and she was alive then I think um but yeah yeah but yeah you know but uh also um the uh the lawyer's wife in the remake is Jessica Lang. Yeah yeah that's exact that that's exactly I was going there next I don't think it's a coincidence that Jessica Lang was in this movie and she was also that's I was going to mention that and uh that's what probably when they're ready to do night in the city I mean he just got off of Cape Fear yeah De Niro said hey how about I I enjoyed working with her yeah I I I I have to say uh it's it the the the whole Jessica Lang aspect of night in the city is so interesting to me because like because like I said I I feel like they took they took the two characters Jean Tierney's character and Googie Withers character and they combined them um in a in a weird way and and Jessica Lang played this very likable character uh but also was you know kind of in this Lee's world but she was likable uh in this she just was fixated on on Fabian Rob De Niro and and I I in a way like I she had a lot more to do than Gene Tierney and then she had a lot more to do than Googie Withers but she kind of did it was like she did both roles and they they they said well let's not make her you know really terrible um you know and but let's not make her perfect either like Gene Tierney is uh it's it's weird. I um but I I I love Jessica Ling as an actress and I and I I think she did a great job in this role she always does a great job um you know but um I I just thought it was interesting that they uh kind of kind of bind the characters um I myself uh I I've I did an episode on Cape Fear a while back and and uh you know I I I love the Scorsese version but I but I um but I really like the original um better.

SPEAKER_06 1:00:44

Oh yeah and and well it's also like I said like the two films you know Night in the city and Cape Fear the remakes complement the original.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:52

I think that's a good point.

SPEAKER_06 1:00:54

You could actually watch the two of them back to back and be entertained. Um Night in the City of course it takes like I said it takes place in postwar London and it has all these London under underworld types these like sort of eccentric street people uh you know who sort of weave in and out of the story. Mm-hmm and like night in the city with De Hero is pretty much very much a New York film. Uh yeah and uh yeah so there's you know there's a lot of differences you you know you have there. Uh I saw that again recently with uh Spike Lee's remake of Kurosawa's High and Low. Oh okay okay which Spike Lee called his film Highest the Lowest I didn't know that either that um uh the Kira Kurosawa film High and Low uh takes place in a Japan that's like building itself up after the war and you know it's it's a kidnapping story. Uh and you get this idea, you know, you just you get this feel of uh Tokyo during you know during the day and especially the nightlife of Tokyo when they're hunting down the kidnapper. Uh but it's the same thing in you know in uh highest the lowest I mean you have this film that takes place primarily in Brooklyn modern day Brooklyn and it that just automatically makes so many things different.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:02:42

So yes you could watch High and Low and Highest the Lowest together and yeah the same story but yet it really is two different films.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:53

That's that's a very good point. I I I th I think that's an excellent point.

SPEAKER_06 1:02:58

And uh have you seen Highest the Lowest? No no I haven't that it was produced by A24 you know the studio you know A24. And it's funny that they think they found the kidnapper they go into this like fleecy apartment and what's the apartment name on the door A24. Oh wow I thought that was a fun little in joke but uh oh that's a oh that just came out last year okay yeah and there's also you know you got with Denzel uh performers you have in the original Mafuni and then you have in you know at Denzel Washington. Yeah you know doing two the they're basically playing the same character but two different approaches. And the same thing with uh De Niro and Richard Witmark. Interesting. You know Jen De Niro's not playing him as you know this bipolar borderline nut job that that almost should be on medication. You know he's just this leaves attorney.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:10

That's a valid point. I I yeah he he doesn't um yeah i in K deer he he kind of ups it a little uh but in this one he downs it a little bit he it's comes the character comes down slightly um you know but uh yeah I I yeah I I I I feel the same about these two that I did the Cape Bear movies. I I really like the the 90s version but I still like the original better and um you know a a lot of that has to do with uh a lot a lot of it just has to do with the fact that uh that it's uh um it is the original and it's the first one you see but rich Richard Witmark I I I think just I don't know what it is about him uh but he could play you know he can play so many sleaze balls so well I mean it just he just did it time after time after time and um you know uh my I'm surprised uh my my my my mom who sometimes listens to the podcast uh uh she um she does not like movies like night in the city so it's fair to say she's not listening to this one uh um but but she uh she um she does not like uh these kind of characters but she uh she was always in love with Richard Woodmark and and himself though.

SPEAKER_06 1:05:51

Uh well it's kind of interesting that um around the same period as Night in the City is it same the same time uh Uh Richard Whigmark was in an episode of I Love Lucy playing himself.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:06

He was. Yeah. Those Hollywood or those uh ones when they were in California, they had a lot of guest stars playing themselves.

SPEAKER_06 1:06:13

Yeah, they have the Lucille Ball sort of breaks into Richard Whitmark's apart uh house. That's right. And there's that room full of all the animal heads and the polar bear rug.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:27

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_06 1:06:27

And they they use those gags, and Rigmark comes in with Desi Ardez, and he's like saying how he uh um you know how he's just like a big game hunter, and you know, he shot this animal while you know he was in Africa shooting the movie. And Rigmark in real life was like he was like an animal activist. He just thought, you know, he just thought hunting was just like so sinful and horrible. And here he is, you know, the you know, this episode of I Love Lucy's trying to say that you know he loves hunting.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:08

And he's playing himself, so he can't yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:07:11

Uh and uh the same year as um Nate in the City, Ridmark's in a um sort of a noir drama called uh No Way Out.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:28

Oh, awesome movie, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:07:30

And with uh Sidney Portier. Oh and as early as 1950, Ridmark's you know, characters using the N-word on Portier.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:40

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_06 1:07:42

And apparently in between takes, he's like saying to Sidney Portier, I was like, really, I'm sorry, this is in the script, it's my job, I have to say this word, and I really cringe every time I I say this word to you. And Portier was saying, I know, no, don't worry, I know it's a job, don't worry about it.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:03

Yeah, and it was purposeful, you know. Uh the the in in in that movie was purposeful to show you know how slimy he was. And so uh yeah, it it's it it had its purpose. Uh that's interesting. I uh yeah, I uh Richard Woodmark is just hey, and he was in the movie Roller Coaster. We talked about him in Roller Coaster a while back.

SPEAKER_06 1:08:28

Uh yeah, he's he's very good in that.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:31

Yeah, he's now like 25 years older, but you know, he he's what a what a what it Hollywood is a small world. Um uh, you know, and it it really is, uh you know, because you really can draw uh so many different I mean it's it's just there's there's so many different connections from one project to another, and you know, that eight degrees of separation, it's a thing uh with uh movies for sure. Um but uh but I overall though I I I think Night in the City scores very high on the noir list. Um, you know, it's it's I think it's right up there with Dare I Say Double Indemnity and Sunset Boulevard, and uh it's uh I I think it falls a little short of those, but it's right up there with them in the in the same um same air, let's just say.

SPEAKER_06 1:09:32

I think it's definitely definitely one of the films if uh you had to take like a younger person and uh introduce them to a film noir.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:43

Be a great one to do. I think you're I think you I think you're right, and I think you're right. And uh my son uh he fell in love with Film Noir when he when when we talked about Sunset Boulevard just a second ago. He he saw that, and I'm I'm gonna show him this too. We do movie night, and and for everyone listening, if you have you know older children, uh or if or if you are an old older child and you have parents that are still around, but uh it it it it it it does it does well to do uh what I do. I do a movie night with my son every week. And um, and what we do is I I introduce him to a movie that I know he hasn't seen that I think he'll like. And then the following week he does that with me. He shows me a movie, it's usually more modern um than the ones I pick for him, but um, but it's it's a way and when we we went we saw Sunset Boulevard at a at at uh a screening uh on the big screen here in town, and and and he he fell in love with that movie. He loves that movie, and and um I and I and I I I think you could make a case for saying that's not noir, but but but you know if you're putting it on a scale one to ten, it's an eight in noir, you know. But uh but this is a ten in noir as far as well it's uh definitely the uh definition of the word classic. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:11:22

Classic is supposed to be you know something that is of such high quality, it just becomes timeless.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:11:30

And I remember when I was very young, you know, these films would wind up like on the four o'clock movie after school.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:11:38

And I you know sort of stumbled upon these movies flipping through the channels. I must have been about eleven years old, maybe twelve years old. I remember seeing I forget the name of the director, but the the the window was Bobby Driscoll.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:53

Oh, I know what you're talking about. I can't, I I can't uh yeah, Bobby Driscoll, I I know what you're talking about.

SPEAKER_06 1:11:58

You know, he's uh this is before air conditioning let your son sleep on the fire escape.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:04

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:12:07

And uh he w you know he's uh he's a uh a liar. He's a chronic liar so he's telling lies. And he thinks he watches a uh a murder for the apartment across the street and nobody believes him. And then of course the killers are realizing he knows this little kid that sits on the fire escape and he's he's telling every you know, he's telling all about us. So it's kinda like a well, it's Cornell Woolrich, it's uh the same writer's rear window. Um it's just I remember like watching this first twelve years old, like I don't care that you know, the it's you know, it's incredibly outdated. Uh, you know, it's you know, it's it's dated all the clothes are dated and the gestures are very dated, but yeah, this story's this story's timeless. No, it is another one that's like that that doesn't another noir that doesn't get that much play, it's um The Sniper by Edward Dimitrick.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:14

Oh, that's a good one. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:13:16

And I mean I remember, you know I was like eleven or twelve and just learning all about you know, psychotic killers and everything. And, you know, here's the psychotic sniper and the the movie just had me completely drawn in. Even though, like I said, the you know, the clothing, the cars and sort of the technology is all very outdated as compared to like nineteen seventy-three.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:47

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_06 1:13:48

So I I think it's definitely not in the city falls under that classic category. I mean, you could definitely show this as somebody, you know, preteen and no, they'll get it, you know. Oh no, I they'll be drawn in.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:05

It's exactly right. I I you know it's I've been, you know uh uh pre preaching about this uh for now going on eight well it's been over eight years now, and and and I have been trying to you know get people uh turned on to movies that they hadn't already seen. The sniper, that's another one that's I recently saw uh Eddie Muller introduced that, I think about a year ago, uh on TCM. And and you know yeah, and that of course has Murray Windsor, who I just adore. Um and Eddie Muller did too, by the way. He he he he met Murray Windsor. There was a there was a um there was a guy that wrote a book um about bad movies. Uh I and I I cannot remember what it was what it was called. You might be familiar with it, uh, but it it was like 1001 bad movies or 101 bad movies, something like that. You're probably talking about Cat Women on the Moon. Yeah, well, I'm sure that was one of them. Um, but but Marie Windsor uh was interviewed for the book, and it was written, you know, I I probably 30 years ago or so. I I I cannot remember who wrote it. I cannot remember the name of it, but Marie Windsor uh looked at the the gentleman that wrote the book and said, I I you know I don't believe this this book at all. I only have two movies in this, and I made a lot more bad movies than that. I just like uh oh, that was such a it's so it's just so uh awesome that somebody could uh uh just kind of look at their career and say, uh, you know, you know, it is what it is. But Marie Windsor was um a lot a lot better than than uh uh some of the some of the movies that she was. Oh no, she's you know, she's in a lot of new or magic. I I love Marie Windsor. I I I wish she had bigger, I wish she had more big roles. Just like Googie, yeah, uh you know, uh uh what what's name, Googie Withers. Um I uh it uh I after I watched that movie, I I got out of my letterbox and I started uh capturing every movie that she was in and and put it in my on my watch list, uh Googie Withers and all the Marie Windsor movies. I I I've seen most of them, but uh some of them I still haven't, and some I think a couple of them are probably lost.

SPEAKER_06 1:16:42

You would probably know she's in uh Force of Evil, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:48

Um she was in a few noirs, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:16:50

Um the sniper, uh and the killing.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:54

Well, we've talked about the killing earlier, she was in that too.

SPEAKER_06 1:16:57

She's in the killing.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:58

Yeah, plays a bad girl in that.

SPEAKER_06 1:17:01

She's uh you know, just in a whole bunch of films. I think in an interview talk about Marie Windsor being interviewed, she uh you know, she talked about the uh the whole did they call a film no war back then? And she said no, they these are you know, these are films that had to be done quickly and they couldn't uh you know have like a lot of lighting, so they they made the dark scenes very artistic.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:29

Yeah, and there's the other matter of the fact that they they were trying to be they were trying to skirt around the code, uh the the Hayes code and and and the the production code. They were trying to that they were also trying to make these movies a little more edgy and and um and I think a lot of directors caught on to the fact that you know, hey, you could have murder, you know, if you don't show it, you you could have murder if you you know uh that kind of thing. And and I think that they um you know certainly Billy Wilder and Double Indemnity uh really skirted the code big time.

SPEAKER_06 1:18:10

But uh also I think uh a lot of uh the audience attitudes uh were beginning to change after the war. Not everything had to be, you know, scrubbed clean and everything.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:18:26

Um, you know, with like a happy ending. Like I said, they had purchased the rights to night in the city in the mid-30s, and if they would have like instantly made a film back then, it probably would have been different. I mean, there probably would have been a little boy character who wants to be a wrestler when he grows up, and he'd be like popping in and out of the scenes and it would have like a happy ending. You know, Herbert Long would be like caught by the police and um you know Ridmark and uh Gene Tierney would walk off, you know, into the sunset.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:10

And uh yeah. I think that's funny.

SPEAKER_06 1:19:13

But especially after the war, it's like you know, the the world was like we you know, we s really saw the dark side of humanity.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:19:23

You know, we need to, you know, yeah, we're ready for uh you know, uh very realistic movies.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:33

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We were it it had become uh it had become a different time for sure. Um well Glenn, I I don't want to keep you forever, um uh, you know, but uh you're a treasure and I really appreciate you coming on.

SPEAKER_06 1:19:55

Yeah, uh I said it's just uh I watched Night in the City just the other night again. And uh it just you know it really holds up. And it would be fun someday to actually find out if there's a uh psychologist who's seen this movie.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:13

I would I I love the fact that you brought that up. I I I I hadn't really thought about it, but yeah, he he he's definitely manic. He's definitely got that. He fits he fits that that that whole deal because he he goes through every emotion, every single emotion in what an hour and 35 minutes. It's pretty insane how uh how his uh character just changes from almost moment to moment. And uh yeah, it's the the De Nero version is more nuanced uh than than uh the than Richard Woodmark character, uh or his his depiction of the character. But I but I I I like both of them and uh but I but I definitely enjoy the original uh with Woodmark and those with that particular cast, uh uh just uh just a touch better. Um anything else you want to do to to uh uh put a little bow on this, uh the the way Hollywood used to, like you just alluded to.

SPEAKER_06 1:21:29

Well, um like I said, if uh you want to introduce Film Noir to uh somebody who's not you know used to film noirs. Start them with this, yeah. You could definitely start him with Night and City.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:21:44

Uh we could only wish what could have happened if Jules Dassin made a horror film.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:51

Uh, you know, that's gonna haunt me, no pun intended. Um, I I I'm I'm thinking about that right now, and I'm like, oh wow, it would have been really he because he did he does set up that ending like a horror film. You're absolutely on target with that. I cannot believe uh how good of an assessment that was. That is very very simple, but it was also something that I just didn't notice. And it's it's like, yeah, it is just like a horror movie. These guys are they're they're almost nameless and faceless, and they're just chasing after him, and and you know he's probably gonna get caught eventually, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I agree with you. This is a good starter film. Um, you know, if you get you know uh uh some young person that you want to introduce to uh I don't know uh to noir. This this I think this is probably a good starter film. So Oh yeah. Well, Glenn, thank you so much for uh coming on. As usual, uh you brought it and uh and I really appreciate it.

SPEAKER_06 1:23:02

All right, well, uh now it's off to a life of ease and plenty.