Movies - Cry of the City

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	Movies - Cry of the City

Cry of the City is a 1948 black-and-white film noir directed by Robert Siodmak based on the novel by Henry Edward Helseth. Veteran film noir-writer Ben Hecht worked on the film's script, but is not credited. The film was shot on location in New York City.

Plot

Victor Mature and Richard Conte play men who both grew up in the same tough inner-city neighborhood (New York's Little Italy). One turned out to be a good cop; the other a ruthless, intelligent killer. Conte playes the wounded gangster on the run and Mature is the cop that's after him.

Critical reaction

The film receives mostly critial praise by reviewers and film fans. praises the realistic look and feel of the city:

"Rarely has the cruel, lived-in squalor of the city been presented in such telling detail, both in the vivid portrayal of ghetto life and in the astonishing parade of corruption uncovered in the night (a slug-like shyster; a monstrous, sadistic masseuse; a sleazy refugee abortionist, etc)"

Raymond Borde and Etienne Chaumeton writing in A Panorama of American Film Noir 1941-1953 comments that director Siodmak had better noir efforts but the film does have one lasting image:

"Siodmak will rediscover neither the brilliance of The Killers
nor the "finish" of Criss Cross
in the over-rushed, too uneven, Cry of the City: for all that, one will remember the figure of a forever famished masseuse, a real "phallic woman" who, with a flick of the wrists, has a "tough guy" at her mercy."

Main cast

Victor Mature
as Lt. Candella
Richard Conte
as Martin Rome
Fred Clark
as Lt Collins
Shelley Winters
as Brenda Martingale
Betty Garde
as Miss Pruett
Berry Kroeger
as W. A. Niles
Tommy Cook as Tony Rome

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Cry of the City ]

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