The Lady from Shanghai (1947)

The Lady from Shanghai is one of those films that I find a little intimidating. It is directed by Orson Welles, and almost everyone, especially if they are film noir fans, has seen it. It also has a well-deserved reputation for a plot that is hard to follow, and many claim that it doesn’t make sense. It didn’t do well at the box office when it was first released in 1947, but its stature has grown in the years hence. And apparently audiences in France have loved it all along. The film does have a convoluted plot, perhaps more convoluted than other films noir. Today, audiences can rewatch the film several times on DVD or Blu-ray (as I did), and the plot does make more sense with repeat viewings, which is so true of many films noir.

The narrative begins in New York City, where Michael O’Hara (played by Orson Welles) spots Elsa Bannister (played by Rita Hayworth) riding past him in Central Park in a horse-drawn carriage. He is immediately smitten with her, and he tells viewers as much in his voice-over narration using an adopted Irish brogue. In this narration, he admits to not being in his right mind for quite some time after seeing Elsa Bannister and that once he saw her, he wasn’t thinking except to think of her. Elsa Bannister’s carriage is waylaid by three men in Central Park, and Michael O’Hara is there to save her.

Michael soon learns that Elsa is married to Arthur Bannister, who calls himself the greatest criminal lawyer. Now, Michael wants to avoid her, and he refuses her invitation to work on her yacht. He goes to the pier to find work on a boat sailing out of New York City, but Arthur Bannister comes looking for him, determined to hire him as part of his yacht crew. He and his wife are traveling to San Francisco by way of the Panama Canal. Michael refuses at first, but Arthur Bannister gets drunk with Michael and two of his sailor friends, and Michael and one of his friends, Chaim (Goldie) Goldfish, are forced to take the too-drunk Arthur Bannister to his yacht.

The trip aboard the Bannisters’ yacht in The Lady in Shanghai ends in San Franciso with many on-location shots. Click here to visit “Reel SF: San Francisco movie locations from classic films” for comparisons (then and now) of various location shots for The Lady from Shanghai. The list is extensive, both for The Lady from Shanghai and for the other movies spotlighted at the website. Click on MOVIE LIST at the top right of the site to see the full list of films.

When they arrive at the yacht, Elsa comes to Michael, claiming to need help and protection. Michael doesn’t know what to make of her, but Goldie is anxious to get work, and he convinces Michael that both of them could probably be hired to work for the Bannisters. Michael reluctantly agrees; he is hired as bosun, and Goldie is also hired as part of the crew.

It doesn’t take long for the tense atmosphere aboard the yacht to be revealed, especially after the arrival of Arthur Bannister’s law partner, George Grisby. Grisby appears to be baiting Michael and also seems smitten with Elsa. Arthur Bannister repeatedly calls his wife Lover, although it is implied that he and she no longer have sex, if they ever did. (Arthur has braces on both legs and walks with two canes.) Elsa tells Michael that Sidney Broome, the yacht’s steward, is not a steward at all but a private detective hired by her husband to spy on her so he can cut her off without any money if they ever get a divorce. When the yacht stops in Acapulco, Mexico, George Grisby offers $5,000 to Michael to kill him, Grisby. And according to Michael, the story just gets crazier and crazier as time goes on.

Michael O’Hara’s voice-over narration continues at times throughout the narrative, and Michael tells his story in hindsight. The entire film could be called a flashback, and flashbacks are one of the many features of film noir. The story is told by Michael from his perspective, and he relies on his own memory to tell it. He starts by telling viewers that he wasn’t in his right mind once he met Elsa Bannister, and this theme of insanity is repeated throughout the film.

The Blu-ray that I watched came with three audio commentaries, one of them by film historian Imogen Sara Smith, who mentions that Orson Welles showed the expressionistic film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) to the cast. He wanted something off-kilter and fantastic, which is definitely true of this expressionistic German film. Welles wanted insanity, characters acting like somnambulists, and a break with reality. Smith also mentions that the interior amusement park scenes at the end of the film were created by Orson Welles himself, and he was inspired by The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari once again and by modern art. So the next time that I watched The Lady from Shanghai, I decided to focus on the theme of insanity, which I think is one of the reasons the plot seems so convoluted.

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is another great film that explores the theme of insanity. It utilizes expressionistic techniques to tell its story, and German expressionism is a large influence on film noir in general. Click here to learn some basics about German expressionism, and click here to see my blog article about the film.

(This article about The Lady from Shanghai contains spoilers.)

The theme of insanity and not being in one’s right mind is mentioned directly several times in The Lady from Shanghai. Michael O’Hara saying at the start of the film that he is not in his right mind after seeing Elsa Bannister is just the beginning, and this particular example is easy to dismiss because many people would use Michael’s words to describe the feeling of infatuation and even love. In this example, not being in one’s right mind could be taken as a euphemism. After he and Goldie set sail on board the Bannisters’ yacht, however, things start to change. Michael says to Bessie, another member of the crew who is also the Bannister’s domestic servant on land, “Talk of money and murder. I must be insane. Or else all these people [the Bannisters, George Grisby] are lunatics.” Michael is a little unnerved at this point, but more insanity is ahead.

When the yacht makes a stop in Acapulco, Michael tells a story to Elsa, Arthur, and George Grisby about fishing “off the hump of Brazil.” He caught a shark in a sea that was already dark with blood. The shark got loose and bled into the sea, and the blood drove the rest of the sharks mad. They started attacking and killing each other, which, he tells the Bannisters and Grisby, reminds him of them.

Michael at least is aware that things aren’t right and that the Bannisters and Grisby aren’t telling him everything they know. He tells Elsa about Grisby’s offer to pay him if Michael will kill him (Grisby), and he also tells her, “I’m sure he’s out of his mind.” After Grisby and Broome are murdered, Michael begins to have some doubts about almost everything: “I began to ask myself if I wasn’t out of my head entirely. The wrong man was arrested. The wrong man was shot. Grisby was dead and so was Broome. And what about [Arthur] Bannister? He was going to defend me in a trial for my life. And me, charged with a couple of murders I did not commit. Either me or the rest of the whole world is absolutely insane.”

Michael escapes from the courthouse where his murder trial takes place by pretending to take some of Arthur Bannister’s painkillers. He takes more than he intended to and passes out in a theater in Chinatown. Li Gong, another of the Bannisters’ servants, and his Chinatown gang take him to the Crazy House at the amusement park, which is closed for the season and thus a perfect place to hide him. When Michael comes to, he is disoriented at first, but he is able to regain his senses: “Well, I came to . . . in the Crazy House! And for a while there, I thought it was me that was crazy. After what I’d been through, anything crazy at all seemed natural. But now, I was sane on one subject: her [Elsa Bannister] . . . I knew about her.”

Out of all the main characters—Elsa and Arthur Bannister, George Grisby, and Michael O’Hara—Michael is the only one alive at the end of the film. His story, his metaphor, about the sharks and their feeding frenzy was more accurate than he could have predicted earlier in the story. The insanity is finally over, but at great cost. Perhaps the cost was inevitable. The Bannisters’ and Grisby’s murderous insanity would have continued forever, it seems, if they hadn’t been stopped. Elsa Bannister admits this to Michael as she lays dying in the Crazy House. Michael, on the other hand, tells her that he refuses to play a part in any more insanity.

As I noted, the Blu-ray version of The Lady from Shanghai, published by Kino Lorber in 2023, comes with three audio commentaries: one each by film historian Imogen Sara Smith, novelist and critic Tim Lucas, and filmmaker Peter Bogdanovich. I have to be honest: I have never been a big fan of Bogdanovich or his films, and I found his commentary to be the least interesting of the three. He literally reads from his notes and recorded conversations that he used for a book about Orson Welles, which was published after Welles’s death. And he also reads from a long letter from Welles to Harry Cohn at Columbia, the studio responsible for distributing The Lady from Shanghai. He did make some interesting points, such as Welles liked on-location shooting because he liked surprises and dealing with challenges. (In contrast, the director Alfred Hitchcock preferred studio shooting because he could control everything.) But Bogdanovich glosses over Rita Hayworth’s childhood abuse and its effect on her marriage to Welles, and he tries to make the case that Welles did his best to deal with it, but Welles and Hayworth were married for only four years. It’s probably best to remember that Bogdanovich thought of Welles as a personal friend.

But the other two commentaries by Smith and Lucas provide lots more information and details. Imogen Sara Smith’s commentary focuses mostly on the film’s production, background, and shooting. Tim Lucas’s focuses quite a bit on the novel, If I Die Before I Wake by Raymond Sherwood King, which is the basis of the film. Both commentaries are well worth a listen because of all the detail they provide. Here are some highlights from each.

Blu-ray audio commentary by film historian Imogen Sara Smith

◊ Orson Welles always intended the film to be offbeat, but Columbia wanted a vehicle for Rita Hayworth, their biggest star.

◊ Rita Hayworth wanted to work with Orson Welles, even though they were no longer living together. They were still married but living separately.

◊ Suicide is another recurring theme in the film.

◊ The court scenes in which Michael O’Hara is tried for the murders of George Grisby and Sidney Broome are staged as a circus. The audience is raucous, and its members are looking to be entertained.

◊ The Lady from Shanghai is told mostly from Michael O’Hara’s point of view, and viewers are just as confused as he is. Disorientation is a feature of film noir.

◊ George Grisby ogles Elsa Bannister. Smith wonders if this is perhaps a comment on studio executives. The scene with him watching her through a telescope while she sunbathes and dives is funny, but it is pushed to the extreme. Hayworth was abused by her father, and her first husband tried to bolster his career by sending her to studio executives.

◊ George Grisby mentions the end of the world and nihilism, which is a reference to the atomic bomb. Welles is one of the first filmmakers to mention the atomic bomb and nuclear destruction in a film. Grisby wants to escape nuclear destruction by moving to a South Sea Island, but the United States tested the bomb on a South Sea Island: Bikini Atoll.

Blu-ray audio commentary by novelist and critic Tim Lucas

◊ Tim Lucas gives a lot of background information about Raymond Sherwood King and the publication of his novel If I Die Before I Wake. He talks about its long path to publication and to its adaptation first as a radio play before it was put on film by Orson Welles. The novel was originally published in May 1938.

◊ The film’s release date in the United States was April 14, 1948. Its release was delayed by one year after production.

◊ Orson Welles refused to take credit or responsibility for the film. There is no credit for the director.

◊ There is no mention in the film’s credits of which novel by Sherwood King is the basis of the film.

◊ The novel takes place only in New York and on Long Island. The film goes from New York to Acapulco, to San Francisco.

◊ The characters in the film are more sinister than they are in the novel. In the novel, Elsa Bannister is portrayed like a lost child. In the film, she is more cunning and conniving. She is really the femme fatale of the film.

◊ Lucas erroneously states that the group of well-dressed Asians listening to the biased radio broadcast about Michael O’Hara and his murder trial seemingly have no link to the courtroom drama, but they do foreshadow the subsequent scenes in Chinatown and at an amusement park, where one of them works. But Tim Lucas is wrong about one thing: one of the Asian men, Li Gong, works for the Bannisters, and he and his gang take Michael O’Hara to the amusement park at the request of Elsa Bannister.

◊ Elsa Bannister’s last scene, her death scene, shows that Rita Hayworth was a good actress.

The Lady from Shanghai is not the only film noir to have a convoluted plot. It’s true that its plot seems more opaque than those of other films, but I have written many times before about other films noir needing repeat viewings to catch all the details and make sense of the plot. And the same can be said for The Lady from Shanghai. It’s well worth the effort. It is a remarkable story and an amazing example of Orson Welles’s particular style of filmmaking. And it is a great chance to see Rita Hayworth meet the challenge of a difficult role. So many films noir have complicated plots that reward repeat viewings, and The Lady from Shanghai is no exception. I have seen the film several times now, and I enjoy it more and more each time.

December 24, 1947 (France), April 14, 1948 (United States), release dates  •  Directed by Orson Welles  •  Screenplay by Orson Welles, William Castle, Charles Lederer, Fletcher Markle  •  Based on the novel If I Die Before I Wake by Raymond Sherwood King  •  Music by Heinz Roemheld  •  Edited by Viola Lawrence  •  Cinematography by Charles Lawton Jr, Rudolph Maté, Joseph Walker

Rita Hayworth as Elsa (aka Rosalie) Bannister  •  Orson Welles as Michael O’Hara  •  Everett Sloane as Arthur Bannister  •  Glenn Anders as George Grisby  •  Ted de Corsia as Sidney Broome  •  Evelyn Ellis as Bessie  •  Gus Schilling as Chaim (aka “Goldie”) Goldfish  •  Erskine Sanford as the judge  •  Carl Frank as District Attorney Galloway  •  Louis Merrill as Jake  •  Harry Shannon as the cab driver  •  Wong Chung as Li Gong  •  Philip Morris as port steward Officer Peters  •  Anita Kert Ellis as the singer dubbed for Rita Hayworth

Distributed by Columbia Pictures  •  Produced by Mercury Productions

The Turning Point (1952)

The Turning Point had been on my list of films to see for some time because I am a huge fan of William Holden. He, and Edmond O’Brien, too, are good reasons to see a film, and neither one disappoints, I’m happy to say. Holden plays a cynical reporter, Jerry McKibbon, who falls in love in spite of himself and who is quick to point out corruption. He is also quick to point out a solution to the corruption, even though he maintains that part of his job as a reporter is to propose the problems but not the solutions.

The opening credits appear over a shot of a passenger plane landing on a runway, then a cut to a motorcade led by police motorcycles (who, I believe, could do a better job of keeping their travel lanes!). The narrative starts with John Conroy, who landed onboard the plane, then arrived at a hotel where his offices have been set up. He is besieged by reporters because he is in town to lead a special investigation into the local crime syndicate organized by crime boss Neil Eichelberger.

Amanda Waycross, John Conroy’s girlfriend, is already in his office waiting for him when Jerry McKibbon, reporter for the Chronicle, arrives to offer his congratulations to Conroy. McKibbon and Conroy grew up together in town, and McKibbon is supposed to write a story about Conroy. (McKibbon never seems to get around to writing the story about John Conroy, but he does write something about Conroy’s father.) Conroy invites McKibbon to join him for breakfast at his parents’ house because they are old friends and the senior Conroys will be glad to see him.

In the cab on the way there, McKibbon warns Conroy about Neil Eichelberger and the dangers ahead: Conroy might have been invited to head the investigation because others might need a sucker, a fall guy. And it will be almost impossible to prove something against Eichelberger. A man like Eichelberger knows how to make and protect his money.

Matt Conroy, John Conroy’s father and a police detective, has been appointed as chief investigator for the committee, but he doesn’t want the job. He tells his son and McKibbon that he wants to stay a cop until he retires. McKibbon finds his objections a bit suspicious, so he starts following Matt Conroy to find out if his suspicions are well founded.

(This article about The Turning Point contains some spoilers.)

John Conroy begins gathering evidence and interviewing witnesses, and he starts with Joe Silbray, a former cop now working for Eichelberger. John Conroy accuses Silbray and one of his accomplices named Jimmy Chop of taking a man named Manzinates to Canada and killing him there. Silbray denies it, and John Conroy needs more evidence to prove his case. He wants to find Manzinates’s widow, who he learns is now living under a new name: Mrs. Stephen Nova. He asks his father Matt Conroy to bring in Mrs. Manzinates for questioning.

John Conroy’s investigating committee was inspired by Senator Estes Kefauver of Tennessee. Kefauver’s Senate committee investigated organized crime in the United States in 1950 and 1951. In his DVD commentary, Alan K. Rode points out that John Conroy’s career is similar to that of Thomas E. Dewey when he was a prosecutor and then district attorney in New York City. Click on each list item below to learn more about the 1950s Senate committee and Dewey.

◊ United States Senate Special Committee to Investigate Crime in Interstate Commerce

◊ Thomas E. Dewey

Yes, Dewey is the one who was announced the winner of the 1948 presidential election. The announcement was premature, however, and Harry Truman won the presidency after all the votes were tallied.

Jerry McKibbon now follows some leads of his own: He follows Matt Conroy; he talks to Neil Eichelberger. Amanada Waycross wants to know what he is up to, which opens the door for both to become attracted to one another and complicate the film’s plot even more. She shows up at McKibbon’s place, and he takes her to the Bunker Hill neighborhood of Los Angeles for a brief ride on the Angel’s Flight funicular rail. Next to the rail is the tenement where Mrs. Manzinates lives. While they are in the Bunker Hill neighborhood (a popular place for location shooting in film noir of the 1940s and 1950s), McKibbon and Waycross see some of Eichelberger’s men guarding outside Manzinates’s apartment. Others are inside to threaten her about testifying against Eichelberger. Their threats are effective, especially because they include harm to her relatives.

McKibbon tells Matt Conroy what he knows, but Conroy warns Eichelberger. Conroy eventually tells McKibbon how easy it is to be lured by money, that is, Neil Eichelberger’s bribes. He talks about feeling underpaid and wanting more for his son, John. The implication is that John Conroy could go to college and law school only because of the money saved from years of his father being on the take. Matt Conroy eventually agrees to McKibbon’s plan to get out of the syndicate’s clutches. But the plan backfires because so many in town have traveled the same route to corruption and are willing to turn on Matt Conroy.

Matt Conroy is subsequently killed in an ambush, and Jerry McKibbon finally tells John Conroy that his father was on the take. Conroy decides at first to quit the investigation. Jerry McKibbon does publish a story in the Chronicle finally, but it is about Matt Conroy and his death being tied to the Eichelberger syndicate. He convinces John Conroy to carry on, and the investigating committee resumes its work with Conroy leading it.

That’s far from the end of the story, however. Neil Eichelberger is questioned by Conroy’s committee. After McKibbon’s story appears in the Chronicle, Eichelberger puts a price on McKibbon’s head. The lengths to which Eichelberger is willing to go to protect his business (because it is portrayed as a business in the film, complete with accounting books and offices) become the major source of tension, danger, and violence as the narrative continues.

William Holden portrays the right mix of cynicism and idealism in the role of Jerry McKibbon. At first, it’s easy for him to be cynical, but he is unhappy that John Conroy wants to quit the investigation after the death of his father. McKibbon delivers a speech to convince his friend that the pursuit of justice is worth it, even though some have to pay a heavy price to see that justice is served. Edmund O’Brien also does a great job as John Conroy, a character that also has to go through some difficult transformations. Both actors make a good pair, so much so that I tried to find other films starring both, but I didn’t have any luck.

Alexis Smith doesn’t have a lot to do as Amanda Waycross, but her role adds some complexity to the plot, which makes the narrative more interesting. Even some of the other so-called supporting roles give other actors more to do and thus overshadow her. I’m thinking of Tom Tully as Matt Conroy and Ed Begley as Neil Eichelberger. But the main attractions are William Holden and Edmund O’Brien. I think they are the real reasons to see The Turning Point.

November 15, 1952, release date  •  Directed by William Dieterle  •  Screenplay by Warren Duff  •  Based on a story by Horace McCoy  •  Music by Irvin Talbot  •  Edited by George Tomasini  •  Cinematography by Lionel Lindon

William Holden as Jerry McKibbon  •  Edmond O’Brien as John Conroy  •  Alexis Smith as Amanda Waycross  •  Tom Tully as Matt Conroy  •  Gretchen Hartman as Mrs. Conroy  •  Ed Begley as Neil Eichelberger  •  Danny Dayton as Roy Ackerman  •  Adele Longmire as Carmelina LaRue  •  Tony Barr as Monty LaRue  •  Ray Teal as Clint, the police captain  •  Ted de Corsia as Harrigan  •  Don Porter as Joe Silbray  •  Howard Freeman as Dave Fogel  •  Neville Brand as Red  •  Carolyn Jones as Lillian Smith  •  Jay Adler as Sammy Lester  •  Whit Bissel as Buck  •  Soledad Jiménez as Mrs. Manzinates

Distributed by Paramount Pictures  •  Produced by Paramount Pictures

The Naked City (1948)

I have seen The Naked City more than once, and I am glad I did because I enjoyed it immensely, and I now have a new appreciation for it. How did I miss the little bits of humor interspersed here and there in an otherwise grim story? Was I so engrossed in the narrative (maybe not such a bad thing) that I forgot to notice the spectacular location shots? Sometimes a film has to be given a second chance; it has to be seen two or even three times to appreciate all the details. The Naked City is a good example.

I shouldn’t be too hard on myself about missing anything because the story in The Naked City moves quickly. A young model has been murdered in her apartment, and her story is intertwined with several others, making for a complicated narrative with many threads. The city is the backdrop for the murder investigation, the main detectives’ investigation and personal lives, the suspects and friends who are interviewed—even one of the murderers himself, who is not a cardboard villain. Throughout it all, the narrative keeps viewers aligned most closely with the police detectives as they conduct their investigation.

The screenwriter, Malvin Wald, based his script on his research at the New City Police Department (NYPD). Many of the narrative’s details are taken from actual cases. Wald provides audio commentary for the film, and part of his discussion is devoted to what he gleaned from his research and applied to the script. It gives the film a semidocumentary style that is reinforced by a voice-over narrator, who is producer Mark Hellinger.

Hellinger introduces the film, the on-location shooting, the city as is. He tells viewers during the opening sequence that it’s a hot summer night when the murder of a female model, Jean Dexter, takes place. Her murder is only one shot in the opening sequence. Some places in the city are empty; others are just filling up. Some people, for example, newspaper reporters, cleaning people, and disc jockeys, are working their night shifts. When day breaks, people go about their many morning routines. Detective Lieutenant Dan Muldoon and Detective Jimmy Halloran are included in this group starting their respective days, and viewers learn their identities later. One of Dexter’s killers regrets the murder and gets drunk to drown his sorrows. The second killer, afraid that his partner cannot be trusted, smashes his head and throws him into the East River.

The housekeeper, Martha Swenson, finds Jean Dexter’s body. The crime is reported to the Tenth Precinct in the Chelsea district of New York City. The Homicide Department is on the third floor. (All of this is also based on fact.) Detectives Muldoon and Halloran are assigned to the case, and so the investigation begins. Jean Dexter’s apartment is combed for clues, and the detectives find plenty: An expensive pair of men’s pajamas in the laundry hamper, a black-star sapphire ring, a bottle of prescription sleeping pills under the bed, missing jewelry. The housekeeper tells detectives during her interview with them that the ring was a gift from Dexter’s brother (the detectives learn from Dexter’s parents that they never had any other children). It isn’t long before the detectives begin learning all they can about Dexter and her life in the city.

(This article about The Naked City contains spoilers.)

Doctor Lawrence Stoneman prescribed the sleeping pills found in Dexter’s bedroom, and Detective Halloran questions him about how well he knew his patient. Frank Niles is another male visitor of Jane Dexter’s; both he and Stoneman complicate the investigation by withholding vital information. But the police are not stymied. They head to Dexter’s place of employment: a dress shop where she modeled. She was fired from this modeling job because married men were always expressing interest in her. Their wives didn’t like it and neither did her employer, a woman interviewed by Detective Halloran. He also meets Ruth Morrison, another model who worked with Dexter at the dress shop. When Halloran learns that they were friends, he brings her to the police station for the beginning of the unraveling of Frank Niles’s lies. Morrison thinks that she and Niles are engaged to be married, but Niles had earlier told Detective Muldoon that he didn’t know Ruth Morrison.

Niles is eventually released by the police, but he is tailed by detectives in the hopes of learning more about his connections to Dexter. He pawns a stolen cigarette case, which provides the detectives with the first of a series of clues about Dexter, Niles, and a ring of jewelry thieves. The black-star sapphire ring and Ruth Morrison’s engagement ring, it turns out, are also stolen property.

Detective Muldoon, Detective Halloran, and Ruth Morrison go to Frank Niles’s apartment to question him about his being in possession of stolen goods. They find him hurt and unconscious on his living room floor, with the assailant escaping on the fire escape. Halloran runs after the assailant but loses him on the elevated subway. Detective Muldoon revives Niles, who claims that the jewelry, including Morrison’s engagement ring, were presents from Jean Dexter. He protests his innocence, but he is arrested for Dexter’s murder anyway.

This scene is an example of the subtle humor I missed on first viewing. Detective Muldoon tries to revive Niles by slapping his cheeks. He suggests to Ruth Morrison that she prepare some cold tea to help Niles’s recovery. Muldoon makes sure that Morrison is in the kitchen and that she isn’t looking before he gives Niles one hard slap, which finally gets Niles moaning. When Morrison returns to the living room, she is frantic about Niles and stroking his face. Muldoon points out that the cold tea would work better.

In his audio commentary, Marvin Wald also talks about the humor in the film. He says that the choice of Barry Fitzgerald in the role of Detective Muldoon gives the film depth, character, and humor. Barry Fitzgerald’s reaction in many scenes, but especially with Mrs. Hylton and with the woman who shows up at the police station because she wants to help the murder investigation, are the work of a master actor. Another example of the humor in the film occurs toward the end, when Detective Jimmy Halloran goes to a luncheonette in the East Side to try to find Willie Garzah. The woman running the luncheonette provides some humor when she recognizes the photo of Garzah but then worries about getting someone else in trouble. She asks Detective Halloran if he is a debt collector.

Wald discusses his research in his audio commentary. He based many of the incidents in the film on several different cases from NYPD files. The following list includes just a few bits of information that Wald offered:

◊ Through his research in 1946, Wald learned that many murder investigations remain unsolved. He was given access to police files for solved and unsolved cases by NYPD Inspector Joseph Donovan, who was the basis for the character of Detective Lieutenant Dan Muldoon.

◊ One of the cases that Wald researched was the murder of a famous model Dorothy (Dot) King, which was never solved. In the police case files was a tip about a high-society admirer from Philadelphia. Wald felt that influence prevailed to stop the investigation. But The Naked City shows the results of Wald’s research.

◊ Detective work is mostly drudgery. It is not glamorous, as it was shown previously in films. Police officers are hard-working civil servants.

◊ Wald also learned from his research that newspaper headline cases always attract nuts and fruitcakes, as he says, who think that they know who the murderer is. In the film, for instance, a woman shows up at the homicide bureau to tell Detective Muldoon that she can help him find the murderer. Headline cases also attract people who want to confess and take credit, so to speak. Later in the film, the police capture a man who breaks into Dexter’s apartment and states that he stabbed her to death. The police know he is not the killer because Dexter was chloroformed and drowned in her bathtub. The introduction of these characters adds some humor to the story.

◊ Police told Wald that the suspect (in the film, Willie Garzah) probably wouldn’t leave the city because he could hide in a crowd. If he left for a small town, he would be a stranger, and the police would take notice.

◊ Doctor Lawrence Stoneman (Dexter’s physician and lover) would have parties, and his guest’s homes would be burglarized while they were his guests. This was also based on a real story: Wald knew a Hollywood producer whose servants pulled the same scam as Jean Dexter and her fiancé Frank Niles.

◊ Class differences between the wealthy and the working detectives are mentioned from time to time throughout the film. For example, Detective Muldoon comments on the fact that Frank Niles spent fifty dollars in one evening. Fifty dollars was a working man’s wages and a family could live on that much. These references to the police as working people worried producers at Universal because they felt that such references were too political.

◊ The Naked City was revolutionary for its time: Although used before, now the documentary technique was applied to a whole city, and until now, murder mysteries were solved by private individuals, not by the police. In The Naked City, the police are shown as competent.

The final sequence, with Willie Garzah on the run and pursued by police officers and detectives, is spectacular. Garzah heads toward the Williamsburg Bridge, and his ascent on the metal staircases is tense. Viewers see what Garzah sees: Tennis players on courts far below, the city skyline from different levels on the bridge, the police staring up at him with their guns drawn. Each shot is meant to add to the tension and excitement of the chase.

I did find myself wondering why Garzah didn’t dive into the East River to get away from the police. He is described previously in the film by various witnesses as an acrobat, a wrestler, a boxer. When Detective Halloran finds Garzah in his apartment, Garzah is exercising, and he tells Halloran that he exercises regularly, doesn’t drink, and doesn’t smoke. Maybe the production code at the time wouldn’t have allowed Garzah to escape: Criminals were not allowed to get away without punishment after all. (But the police could have caught him in the river, right?)

The voice-over narrator is intrusive by today’s standards. But in the case of The Naked City, he definitely adds to the semidocumentary style. He also delivers what would become the most famous line from the film: “There are 8 million stories in the naked city. This has been one of them.” The late 1950s/1960s television series Naked City was based on the film, and each episode ends with this famous line.

New York City is shot in all its postwar midcentury splendor in The Naked City. Each part of the city seems like its own little neighborhood, with pedestrians bustling in every direction. Cars hadn’t taken over the city’s streets and the American way of life just yet, but things changed pretty quickly after the film’s release. There is even a sequence in which Mrs. Halloran tells her husband when he comes home that their young son crossed a busy road by himself earlier in the day. She worries that he could be killed if he doesn’t obey her instructions about crossing busy streets by himself. The city may be a collection of tight-knit neighborhoods and watched over by dedicated civil servants, but there’s still danger for everyone living there.

March 4, 1948, release date  •  Directed by Jules Dassin  •  Screenplay by Albert Maltz, Malvin Wald  •  Based on a story by Malvin Wald  •  Music by Miklós Rózsa, Frank Skinner  •  Edited by Paul Weatherwax  •  Cinematography by William H. Daniels

Barry Fitzgerald as Detective Lieutenant Dan Muldoon  •  Howard Duff as Frank Niles  •  Dorothy Hart as Ruth Morrison  •  Don Taylor as Detective Jimmy Halloran  •  Frank Conroy as Captain Donahue  •  Ted de Corsia as Willie Garzah  •  House Jameson as Dr. Lawrence Stoneman  •  Anne Sargent as Mrs. Halloran  •  Adelaide Klein as Paula Batory  •  Grover Burgess as Mr. Batory  •  Tom Pedi as Detective Perelli  •  John McQuade as Detective Dace Constantino  •  Enid Markey as Mrs. Hylton  •  Walter Burke as Pete Backalis  •  Virginia Mullen as Martha Swenson  •  Arthur O’Connell as Sergeant Shaeffer  •  Joe Kerr as Ned Harvey  •  Mark Hellinger as the narrator

Distributed by Universal-International Pictures  •  Produced by Mark Hellinger Productions