The Naked City (1948)

Fresh and Exciting

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

it is finally so absorbing because it plays like a lyrical road odyssey that’s also a detective story.

Great movie! If you want to be entertained and have a few good laughs, see this movie. The music is also very good,

'The Naked City (1948)' is marred by invasive and down-right bizarre meta-textual narration provided by the film's own producer, a constant presence presented with a kind of tabloid masculinity and omniscient edge that really gets in the way of the story, at times. The flick can often boil down to slow scenes of bored detectives mulling over old evidence to no avail. When it works, however, it works well. The case takes a few keen twists right when it seems at its most hopeless and the picture culminates in a genuinely thrilling climactic chase. Plus, this is a corner-stone in the police-procedural genre and the on-location filming was almost unparalleled. 7/10

It was one of those cold, wet days when movies (in the immortal words of Patton Oswalt, writing in SILVER SCREEN FIEND) "started to blend together into one massive, daymare-fueled meganarrative." First, there was THE HARDER THEY FALL, one of the greatest boxing movies ever made (Or was that one the day before...?); then, THE NAKED CITY, followed by THE ASPHALT JUNGLE and THE MALTESE FALCON- all courtesy of Turner Classic Movies, one of the few "premium channels" truly worthy of the designation. "Rain and comfortable cold," wrote Oswalt: "Paradise for a movie-freak moleman like myself." I'd never seen THE NAKED CITY before (though I'd wanted to) and it came as a pleasant surprise. For one thing, the humor caught me by surprise- and Barry Fitzgerald as "Muldoon" was firing on all cylinders. (I would've preferred it had Fitzgerald himself done the narration- it fit his character's temperament perfectly- "to a T," as in T-Men, to belabor the point...) The inclusion of another professional wrestler in a pivotal part made THE NAKED CITY very much "a Jules Dassin" movie (to me, anyway, having just recently seen NIGHT AND THE CITY). The overall feel of the film was somehow timeless and, again, I'm reminded of another Oswalt observation in SILVER SCREEN FIEND: "You are given the space of a film to STEAL TIME. And the projector is your only clock." Not a bad way to spend a cold, rainy day.

What a thrilling film with so many slice of life scenes from New York. BARRY FITZGERALD is faultless as the wily lieutenant Dan Muldoon. What a wonderful actor. DON TAYLOR as the earnest Jimmy Halloran is the perfect foil for FITZGERALD. The whole team of detectives was terrific. They came across like they worked together for their whole lives. A lot of the people on the films board was irritated by the producer's narration, that was almost like a running commentary for the events in the movie. But i thought it was a nice touch. The makers back in the day were seriously innovative.This is probably my second favorite JULES DASSIN movie after RIFIFI. He really is a master of these orgasmic climaxes. It is just terrific how he builds them up.(10/10)

I admit I work long days and don't have a lot of energy once I get home to watch one of my DVR'd movies. But I tried four times to see this film through to the end, and each time it put me to sleep. I finally gave up and deleted the loser.The movie starts out somewhat intriguingly in a documentary-like mode as it examines snippets of New York City life to set the scene. We then witness the last moments of a murder, which, strangely, the voice-over treats in a casual, jarringly wry manner. The movie then goes on to create a touchy-feely, leprechaun-like characterization of Irish police Lt. Muldoon and show his dedicated team of gumshoes, most notably Don Taylor as Halloran, an actor who bears an uncanny resemblance to Steve Doocy, a current FOX news network anchor. The scenes of Halloran at home with his perky, childish wife are dated, cutesy, and off-putting.Balancing this stuff out is a dour and extended visit with the dead woman's saturnine parents and scenes from the extremely dysfunctional relationship of sleazy murder suspect Frank Niles and Dorothy Hart as Ruth Morrison. The audience is supposed to dumbly accept that a gorgeous pin-up type like Ruth has no problem hitching her destiny to a creep like Niles. (I hate when audiences are taken for such fools!)I'm sorry I tried so many times to see this messy patchwork to its conclusion. The more I saw, the less I cared whodunit.