While the City Sleeps (1956)

Fantastic!

disgusting, overrated, pointless

It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

One night in New York City, leather-clad delivery man John Barrymore Jr. (as Robert Manners) bludgeons to death a young woman as she gets into her bathtub. Relax, it occurs off-screen. The perpetrator a mother-fixated "Psycho" serial killer, targeting women who order feminine accessories from the drugstore. The sensational story of "The Lipstick Killer" is circulation gold for newspapers, with occasionally intoxicated "Sentinel" reporter Dana Andrews (as Edward "Ed" Mobley) getting the big scoops. Taking advantage of the situation, media mogul Vincent Price (as Walter Kyne), decides to promote his best worker to a financially rewarding position. Vying for the job are managing editor Thomas Mitchell (as John Day Griffith), wire service head George Sanders (as Mark Loving) and top photographer James Craig (as "Honest" Harry Kritzer)..."While the City Sleeps" boasts a great group of characters, taken from Charles Einstein's original story "The Bloody Spur" and kept lively by Casey Robinson's screenplay. They intertwine well, as directed by Fritz Lang. He moves everyone around multiple sets and a shadowy subway terminal. Sexy female roles go to fashion conscious Ida Lupino (as Mildred Donner), double dipping Rhonda Fleming (as Dorothy Kyne), and tightly attired Sally Forrest (as Nancy Liggett). A weakness is, however, that the "chemistry" between various players doesn't always work; the individual stars seem greater than the sum. The best couple is formed by Ms. Lupino and Mr. Andrews, but sparks aren't often flying like they should. In smaller roles, "silent" film stars Mae Marsh (the killer's mother) and Robert Warwick (the expiring Kyne) are used exceptionally well.******* While the City Sleeps (5/16/56) Fritz Lang ~ Dana Andrews, Thomas Mitchell, John Drew Barrymore, Ida Lupino

When NYC newspaper tycoon Walter Kyne dies and the city is plagued by a serial killer, the pressure is on at Kyne Corporation to crack the case and inherit the top job ...This late-period film noir is a great little thriller with a terrific subtext - the killer's moral degeneracy reflected in the ethics of the media men who'll go to almost any lengths to get an exclusive. Made during TV's infancy, it is startlingly prescient of tabloid journalism tactics (here in the UK there is currently a huge public enquiry on exactly this subject), with Andrews excellent as the weary columnist tired of the seemingly endless lust of his bosses for titillating scoops. Everyone is a grifter looking to exploit the killer's acts to make themselves richer or more important, and the sensational cast chew through their dialogue in true hardball style. Mitchell comes out on top, Price and Sanders compare slimeball notes, Lupino is the gossip columnist from Hell, Fleming is even hotter than usual, and Barrymore (son of John and father of Drew) is intensely scary as the Lipstick Killer, in the kind of part that made Robert DeNiro a star. Adapted by Casey Robinson from Charles Einstein's wonderfully-titled book The Bloody Spur, based on a real case. This movie was made at the tail-end of Lang's illustrious career, but it's typically full of directorial inventiveness, tight pacing, brilliantly observed characters and a sobering view of human nature. It perhaps owes a little to some earlier films (Ace In The Hole, say), but it's a great, gripping, B-movie potboiler with a sensational cast.

Fritz Lang's While the City Sleeps shows the suspense master has lost a lot off of his fastball in this run of the mill drama involving a media power struggle and a serial killer. It's a long way from Berlin where the stairwells were a lot more intimidating.The Kyn media empire is thrown into chaos when it's founder and owner dies. The son (Vincent Price) is a clueless but also ruthless playboy and he pits department heads against each other to consolidate his own power. Meanwhile a serial killer with a mother complex is terrorizing the city and finding the killer may well be the path to upward mobility.There's little tension or suspense to be found in WTCS with its incredulous oversights that lapse into silly premise with the cast playing it broad both successfully (Price, Thomas Mitchell, George Sanders) and flat (Dana Andrews, Sally Forrest, Rhonda Fleming, ) while others ( John Drew Barrymore and Ida Lupino ) take it over the top. Lang's direction is dated and stilted, Ernest Lazlo's photography mood-less and washed out. The sets have a floodlit television studio look and without shadows to accent his compositions become lifeless and mundane, his characters less sinister and amoral. Lang does do a decent balancing act with the newsroom drama rotating his characters who back stab, form alliances, seduce and cheat without allowing things to become convoluted. But with his visual energy zapped and Barrymore a dime store Lorre the films urgency wanes. What does make Sleep interesting is the unintentional capsule view of the period with it's common acceptance of drinking on the job, heavy smoking, blind ambition for upward mobility ( this is still around in abundance ) and sexism though it should be added that at the film's conclusion the female leads hold most of the cards.

"While The City Sleeps" is a well written and fast moving story about a power struggle that develops in a media organisation following the death of its well respected proprietor. Murder, romance and bitter rivalries feature strongly and the presence of a devious group of characters played by an all star cast ensures that the level of intrigue remains high throughout.After having read a report of the murder of a young woman who had been strangled, media mogul Amos Kyne (Robert Warwick) instructs his top executives to make the story into front page news and as the the killer had written the words "Ask Mother" in lipstick on a wall in his victim's apartment, Kyne adds that the murderer should be referred to as "The Lipstick Killer".Shortly after issuing these instructions, Kyne dies and his playboy son, Walter (Vincent Price) inherits the business. As he has no idea how to run a media empire, Walter decides that he'll create a new senior executive post so that the incumbent can effectively manage the business for him. The three candidates for the job are John Day (Thomas Mitchell), the editor of the "New York Sentinel", Mark Loving (George Sanders) who's in charge of the wire service and chief photographer Harry Kritzer (James Craig). Walter makes it clear that whichever man is able to provide a scoop by exposing the identity of "The Lipstick Killer" will be given the top job.In the past, Amos had made it clear that he would have liked Ed Mobley (Dana Andrews) to be his successor but the Pulitzer Prize winning ex-reporter who had moved on to become an author and news commentator on the Kyne TV channel had made it known that he was not interested in seeking more power. By contrast, Griffith and Loving have no such reservations and quickly go into competition with each other. Ktitzer, on the other hand is having an affair with Walter's wife Dorothy (Rhonda Fleming) and plans to use her to achieve his ambition. She though, is also power hungry and tells Harry that if he's successful as a result of her influence, she'll be pulling the strings.Despite his reluctance to get involved in the power struggle, Mobley agrees to Griffith's request to help him and Loving conscripts the assistance of his mistress Mildred Donner (Ida Lupino) who's also a columnist on Kyne's newspaper.Following the murder which had attracted Amos Kyne's attention, "The Lipstick Killer" had gone on to commit other murders and Mobley uses his friendship with the police detective who's working on the case to get the inside track on how the investigation is progressing. Together with Lieutenant Burt Kaufman (Howard Duff), Mobley then devises a plan to provoke the murderer into actions which will lead to his early arrest and a variety of further complications follow before the races for the top job and the arrest of the serial killer are finally concluded.This movie makes some interesting observations about the roles that the media can play in the context of high profile crimes. Initially, "The Lipstick Killer" story is given a high level of prominence because of its sensational nature and its potential for selling newspapers but it's then also used as an important component in the competition for a top job in the industry. The view is expressed that comic books encourage gullible readers into criminal acts and Lieutenent Kaufman also bemoans the fact that too much information about police methods is published in newspapers etc and this makes it much harder for law enforcement officers to keep one step ahead of the criminals. Television is also used by Mobley to make an important direct address to the serial killer.The competition between the Kyne executives soon makes them ruthless and unprincipled and their methods become increasingly corrupt and unsavoury and even Mobley who had originally appeared to have higher standards, proves to be a heavy drinker who has no qualms about setting up his own fiancée, to be a target for the serial killer. His principles also seem to dessert him when Loving sends Mildred to seduce him."While The City Sleeps" is intelligent and engrossing and the various strands of its rather involved plot are expertly brought together to produce an entertaining movie which really deserves more credit that it has previously been given.