The Naked City

Entertaining crime-drama featuring some great NYC locales and the performance from Barry Fitzgerald was fun. Not a great film noir so can't say it's a classic in my book, but still a well done film from the 1940s. 3.75/5

By being filmed on the streets of New York, Naked City is a film that earnestly attempts to bring a sense of realism to the noir genre. This ambitious attempt, however, falls short of the mark, lacking the grit and charm that define true noir, and becomes painfully melodramatic. Its effort at authenticity is marred by its excessive voiceover, as Brian Cox's character in Adaptation. warned: "And God help you if you use voiceover in your work, my friends. God help you. That's flaccid, sloppy writing." The narration feels like a lazy shortcut that detracts from the visual storytelling instead of enhancing it.

This one's all talk, no grit.

There's quite an affecting documentary feel to this film as "Lt. Muldoon" (Barry Fitzgerald) investigates the drowning of model "Jean" in what should have been the safety of her New York apartment. This cop is no slouch and is quickly dragging his newbie sidekick "Jimmy" (Don Taylor) all over the place in search of clues. Suspicion initially falls on the woman's close friend "Niles" (Howard Duff) but the police are pretty convinced that her maid, and also possibly her best pal "Ruth" (Dorothy Hart), may know more than they're letting on too. When they discover a bottle of sedatives, that some of her jewellery has gone missing and then a corpse floating in the East River the men must wade through a mire of lies, deceit and mis-information fr...