The Naked City, and a few more movies

THE NEVERENDING
FILM FESTIVAL
#196  [archive]
10/20/2023

The Naked City (1948)

This is a dark police procedural that still holds up, which spawned a lesser TV series with its famous tag line, "There are eight million stories in the naked city."

The naked city is New York, but all the people are wearing clothes. One of them's dead, though — a young woman's been killed, and the NYPD's Homicide Department is methodically collecting clues.

The murder mystery is better than average, with a resolution that isn't obvious but seems plausible. Of course, the film is flattering to the police department, showing every cop as a straight-arrow concerned only with the pursuit of truth, justice, and the American way.

Gotta add, the movie is 75 years old, but I am skeptical there was ever a time when a gunshot in New York City brought cops and ordinary people running fast as they could toward the sound of the shot.

Sprinkled between the cop interviews and detective work, there's a bevy of brief scenes unconnected to the mystery, showing ordinary New Yorkers going about their days. Some of these vignettes are comical, some sad, and a few are far more hauntingly blunt and bleak than you'd expect. The effect is to make the city sort of a character in the story, not merely its setting.

Perhaps a little too proud of that idea, the film is introduced by its producer, Mark Hellinger (Brute Force, The Killers, Moontide), who explains the concept, reads the opening credits, then narrates the film. (Google tells me that before he went into moviemaking, Hellinger was an old-school theater columnist in New York City, bumping shoulders with Damon Runyon, Walter Winchell, and J J Hunsecker.)

Filmed entirely on location in New York City, it's a surprise to see horse-drawn trucks in the late '40s, traversing the streets and avenues alongside modern-ish motor vehicles.

What makes the film shine are those slice-of-life vignettes — teenage girls talking about boys, men at their jobs thinking out loud, even a random murder that's never mentioned again. And jeez, the movie's last moments are remarkable.

Verdict: YES, and I spent a few minutes arguing with myself that it ought to be a BIG YES. Possibly I take these reviews of old movies too seriously.

♦ ♦ ♦ 

Fog Over Frisco (1934) 

This was filmed in San Francisco before the Golden Gate Bridge was built, and it stars Bette Davis as an upper-class good time girl. Those are the movie's pluses, and indeed it sparkles whenever Davis is on screen. 

Trouble is, despite having top billing, she's in a supporting role, and not on screen all that often. The rest of the movie's too talky and kinda boring, with lots of things going on, but not much that merits paying attention.

Verdict: NO.

♦ ♦ ♦ 

Ticker (2001)

This is (intended to be) a suspense film about bombs and the bomb squad. Tom Sizemore plays Jaded Cop Who Doesn't Play By The Rules, and his wife and kid have been killed by a bomb, so now it's personal.

Dennis Hopper made the bomb, and plays exactly the same Mad Bomber he played in Speed. Same look, same demeanor, same bombs. This could be a sequel to Speed, but it would be a very, very bad sequel.

Steven Seagal plays the zen-talking leader of the bomb squad, but you're not supposed to say 'bomb'. It's unlucky or something. "So you're the Device Squad," says Sizemore, "and you defuse… devices." It's by far the cleverest line in this film.

Seagal is an odd character in real life. He was briefly a part-time cop for some reality show, he's collected several sexual abuse accusations, and he's buddy buddy with America's meanest and most corrupt cop, ex-sheriff Joe Arpaio.

As an actor, Seagal has a Botoxian inability to make more than one facial expression — his patented tough sneer —but he somehow lucked into Under Siege, a passable action movie. Since then he's piled up more poop than my grandma's outhouse, and his performance here Is almost literally absent.

In several scenes, the camera cuts away when Seagal has lines, so we hear him speak but don't see it. It's bizarre — sometimes the camera angle is from behind his head while he speaks, sometimes his lips are blocked from view, sometimes the screen simply shows another actor's reaction while Seagal speaks. When he does speak on camera, his voice sometimes seems oddly slurred.

Did Seagal come to work some days too coked up to deliver his dialogue, and it had to be added later? Wondering about that is miles more interesting than anything in the movie, which is artless garbage.

Verdict: BIG NO.

10/20/2023   

• • • Coming attractions • • •

God Bless America (2011) 

Hobo (1992)

Invader (1991)

John Wick (2014)

The Last Case of August T Harrison (2015) 

The Mad Doctor of Market Street (1941)

Man with a Movie Camera (1929)

The Night Strangler (1973)

Nightmare Alley (1947)

9 to 5 (1980)

Risky Business (1983)

The Rockford Files (debut episode; 1974)

Smothered (2002)

Special Bulletin (1983) 

Squirm (1976) 

Stephen Fry in America (2008)

Taoism Drunkard (1981) 

The Time Traveler's Wife (2009)

You Can't Take It With You (1938)

... plus occasional schlock and surprises 

    • • • And then • • •

A Better Tomorrow (1996)

A Gnome Named Gnorm (1990)

A Night in Casablanca (1946) 

Alexander Nevsky (1938)

The Bat People (1974) 

The Beatles: Get Back (2021) 

Berkeley in the Sixties (1990)

Brainwaves (1983) 

The Card Counter (2021) 

Cellular (2004)  

The Celluloid Closet (1996)

The Dark Glow of the Mountains (1985)

Dark Star (1974)

The Day My Parents Became Cool (2009) 

The Decline of Western Civilization (1980) 

Downsizing (2017)

Frankenhooker (1990) 

The General (1926) 

Get Shorty (1995)

The Gorilla (1939)

The Green Girl (2014)

Hiroshima (1953)

Hugo (2011) 

The Importance of Being Earnest (1952)

The Internet's Own Boy (2014)

Kids in the Hall (debut episode; 1988)  

Kids in the Hall (reunion debut episode; 2022) 

The Killing of America (1981) 

The Last Temptation of Christ (1988)  

Line of Duty (debut episode; 2012)

Love Happy (1950)

The Magnificent Ambersons (1942)

The Man Who Thought Life (1969)

The Man with Nine Lives (1940)

The Manhattan Project (1996) 

Morgan: A Suitable Case for Treatment (1966)

Not Wanted (1949)

Nothing But a Man (1964) 

Phone Booth (2002)

PickAxe (1999)

Poison (1990)

Popeye (1980)

Reflections of Evil (2002)

Revelations (1993)

Ride in the Whirlwind (1966)

Romper Stomper (1992)

Room Service (1938) 

Same Kind of Different as Me (2017) 

Saved! (2004)

Scared to Death (1947) 

Secret Weapons (1985) 

The Shooting (1966)

The Soloist (2009) 

Sons of the Desert (1933)

Street of Crocodiles (1986)

Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927)

Taken for a Ride (1996)

The Train (1964)

Truck Turner (1974)

Welcome to New Orleans (2006)

Who Farted? (2019) 

Who's That Girl? (1987) 

Wristcutters: A Love Story (2006)

There are so many good movies out there — old movies, odd or artsy, foreign or forgotten movies, or do-it-yourself movies made just for the joy of making them — that if you only watch whatever's on Netflix or playing at the twenty-plex, you're missing out.

To get beyond the ordinary, I recommend:

Alter • Cineverse • Criterion • CultCinema Classics • DocsVille • Dust • Fandor • Films for Action • Hoopla • IHaveNoTV • IndieFlix • Internet Archive • Kanopy • KinoCult • Kino Lorber • Korean Classic Film • Christopher R Mihm • Mosfilm • Mubi • National Film Board of Canada • New Yorker Screening Room • Damon Packard • Mark Pirro • PizzaFlix • PopcornFlix • Public Domain Movies • RareFilmm • Scarecrow Video • Shudder • ThoughtMaybe • Timeless Classic Movies • VoleFlix • WatchDocumentaries • or your local library. 

Some people even access films through shady methods, though of course, that would be wrong.

— — —

 Illustration by Jeff Meyer. Reviews are spoiler-free, or at least spoiler-warned. Click any image to enlarge. Arguments & recommendations are welcome, but no talking once the lights dim, and only real butter on the popcorn, not that fake yellow stuff. 

 

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