The first time that I saw While the City Sleeps, it seemed the least noir of the three films in director Fritz Lang’s newspaper noir trilogy, and I would say that’s still true on repeat viewings. The story involves a serial killer in New York City and newspaper employees trying to outsmart one another to tell the killer’s story. But the main characters Edward Mobley and Nancy Liggett fall in love, and their typical-for-1950s romance is given a lot of screen time for a noir.
While the City Sleeps is the second of director Fritz Lang’s newspaper noir film trilogy. The others are The Blue Gardenia (released on March 28, 1953) and Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (released on September 13, 1956). My plan is to see and write about all three in the trilogy as part of a series this April for my blog. I have written twice about The Blue Gardenia. Click on each article title in the list below to find both articles.
◊ The Blue Gardenia (1953)
◊ The Blue Gardenia (1953): The First in Fritz Lang’s Newspaper Noir Trilogy
Dana Andrews plays news commentator Edward Mobley. His boss owns several newspapers, including one called the New York Sentinel that is run by Jon Day Griffith; a television channel, where Edward Mobley works; and a wire service, headed by Mark Loving. The serial killer is in the middle of his murderous reign in New York City, and his story absorbs everyone in the media conglomerate.
Media owner Walter Kyne takes over the business after his father Amos Kyne dies. Walter doesn’t know too much about the news business, so he creates the position of executive director and hopes to fill it with someone who does know the business, who will do all the work, and then keep him apprised of all developments. His goal is not to have to do any of the direct managing himself.
When reporters learn of the serial killer terrorizing young women in the city, Walter Kyne decides to give the job of executive director to the person who learns the killer’s identity first, setting up a fierce competition. Edward Mobley takes himself out of the running because he has been away from the crime beat for five years and doesn’t want to go back. So the search is down to Jon Day Griffith, Mark Loving, and a photographer called “honest” Harry Kritzer. Kritzer is not so honest: He is having an affair with Kyne’s wife and uses her to influence her husband Walter.
Sounds noir, but the character of Edward Mobley brings a devil-may-care attitude that actually lightens the mood of the film. His attitude shows up the most in his romance with Nancy Liggett. It’s one of the reasons she gets angry with him and is hesitant to become emotionally involved with him. In one scene, he tries his best to get her to sleep with him, but she doesn’t fall for any of his propositions. She might have fallen for the one where he tells her that he loves her, but he won’t go quite that far. He does finally ask her to marry him in a roundabout way, and she does agree to that.
The narrative actually starts with a delivery from a drugstore. Viewers know almost immediately that the delivery person is the serial killer simply by his clothes: 1950s motorcycle gang style with a black leather jacket, black leather gloves, and a cloth cap. He listens at the door to hear that the janitor (who accepted the delivery) is leaving. He hides, watches the janitor leave, then he goes back to the apartment to surprise the woman, Judith Felton, whose scream ends the opening sequence.
(This article about While the City Sleeps contains almost all the spoilers.)
The police arrest the janitor, George Pilski, the man who accepted the drugstore package at Felton’s apartment. Edward Mobley visits his old friend Lieutenant Burt Kaufman in the police department and tells him that George Pilski didn’t kill Felton. Lieutenant Kaufman tells Mobley that anyone can learn how to commit a murder by reading what’s published these days, including the stories in comic books. According to the lieutenant, the comics provide enough details to educate any would-be criminal—a bit of detail in the film that I found fascinating because if Lieutenant Kaufman is right, criminals haven’t changed their technique too much, except that they find what they want to know today online instead of in print. Mobley is convinced, however, that the police should be looking for a younger man. He is sure that they will have to let Pilski go by the end of the day because they won’t have enough evidence against him.
While George Pilski is in custody and Lieutenant Kaufman and Mobley are talking, Kaufman receives news of another murder of a young woman, a schoolteacher. Both of them go to the crime scene, and again Mobley voices his opinion. Mobley may be five years removed from crime reporting, but he still seems to have the same gut instincts about crime. He thinks the killer is taunting the police by what he leaves at the crime scenes: First was the message “Ask mother” scrawled in lipstick on the wall of Judith Felton’s apartment; next is a copy of The Strangler magazine at the schoolteacher’s apartment. Lieutenant Kaufman has to admit that Mobley may be right.
Mobley decides to use his television newscast to address the killer directly. The killer is watching and is upset by what Mobley says: that the killer is young, that he lives with his mother, and that he is a momma’s boy, among other details that all happen to be true of the killer. Mobley thinks that taunting the killer will make him angry enough to make a mistake and get caught. He is pretty sure that the killer will go after anyone that he (Mobley) likes, and that person could be Nancy Liggett.
Mobley doesn’t discuss the case with Liggett before he does the television broadcast. When he does tell her, she doesn’t seem to be worried about it, which is a good thing because the announcement of Mobley’s and Liggett’s recent engagement is already in the newspaper, and it is big news because he is a media employee who is in the public eye thanks to his television news broadcasts. Mobley tells Liggett, with Lieutenant Kaufman in attendance, that he and the lieutenant have already arranged for Nancy to have her own personal police detail.
Mobley is right: The killer looks for Nancy Liggett, but she won’t open the door when the killer comes knocking because he identifies himself as Mobley and Nancy is angry with him. Instead, the killer attacks Dorothy Kyne, Walter Kyne’s wife, when she visits Harry Kritzer, who is renting an apartment across the hall from Liggett’s. Dorothy Kyne fights off the killer and bashes his head with a heavy ashtray, stunning him enough to escape. She goes to Nancy Liggett’s apartment, and Nancy lets her in. Nancy calls out her apartment window to Mobley and Lieutenant Kaufman, who have just arrived because Mobley thinks the killer’s next move will be to kill in broad daylight (the other killings were committed during the night). Nancy tells Mobley and Lieutenant Kaufman where the killer is heading after he leaves the apartment building.
Edward Mobley has all the right ideas about the serial killer. Coincidence certainly works in his favor when he happens to show up at the same time that the killer decides to kill during the day, and the police certainly benefit from Dorothy Kyne’s feistiness and Nancy Liggett’s quick thinking. I was surprised that the main female characters were given so much to do in the story. Thanks to their contributions, Mobley and the police chase down the killer, who is finally caught trying to escape through a manhole cover above a subway line. He eventually confesses to killing four women.
Four women have been murdered, and all Edward Mobley, Jon Day Griffith, and Mark Loving care about is getting the story out before anyone else does. Harry Kritzer cares only about covering up his affair with Dorothy Kyne, Walter’s wife. Edward Mobley and Nancy Liggett leave New York City to get married and go on their honeymoon in Florida. While they are away, Nancy reads the following in the newspaper: Harry Kritzer is on an extended goodwill tour, Jon Day Griffith is the new executive director, and Edward Mobley has been promoted to managing editor of the New York Sentinel.
In While the City Sleeps, several characters use the news to further their own interests, much like Casey Mayo does in The Blue Gardenia. The themes of both films are very similar, although the stories are told a bit differently. Casey Mayo is a newspaper writer; Edward Mobley is a reporter turned television news anchor. Both of them use their romantic interests for their own professional benefit. Mayo offers advice and legal help to the murderer of Harry Prebble with no intention of following through; Mobley uses his girlfriend as bait to catch a serial killer.
Everyone gets a happy ending, however, in While the City Sleeps, an ending that ties up all the loose ends neatly and feels a bit tacked on. The relationship between Mobley and Liggett is a necessary part of the film—without her and Dorothy Kyne, Mobley and Lieutenant Kaufman wouldn’t have caught the serial killer, at least, not as soon as they did—but I wish it and the film’s ending fit more with the noir tone of the film.
I don’t want to give the impression that I didn’t enjoy While the City Sleeps because I did. Dana Andrews is one of my favorites. I have always liked him, since the first time I saw him in The Best Years of Our Lives on television many years ago. And he does a good job in While the City Sleeps in spite of the fact that his drinking was reportedly excessive by the 1950s. The list of noir regulars in this film is extraordinary, with great performances from all of them. Of the three films in Lang’s newspaper noir trilogy, however, this one has a few plot details that I wish were more noir and less romance.
May 16, 1956, release date • Directed by Fritz Lang • Screenplay by Casey Robinson • Based on the novel The Bloody Spur by Charles Einstein • Music by Herschel Burke Gilbert • Edited by Gene Fowler Jr. • Cinematography by Ernest Laszlo
Dana Andrews as Edward Mobley • Rhonda Fleming as Dorothy Kyne • George Sanders as Mark Loving • Howard Duff as Lieutenant Burt Kaufman • Thomas Mitchell as Jon Day Griffith • Vincent Price as Walter Kyne • Sally Forrest as Nancy Liggett • John Drew Barrymore as Robert Manners • James Craig as “Honest” Harry Kritzer • Ida Lupino as Mildred Donner • Robert Warwick as Amos Kyne • Mae Marsh as Mrs. Manners • Leonard Carey as Steven Butler • Ralph Peters as Gerald Meade, a reporter • Sandy White as Judith Felton • Pitt Herbert as Carlo the bartender at the Blue Dell • Vladimir Sokoloff as George Pilski
Distributed by RKO Radio Pictures • Produced by RKO Radio Pictures
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