Night and the City, London's Seedy Side

Special thanks to my good buddy Jason "Jay" Croot (filmmaker/author) from across the pond who suggested today's film.  Okay, confession, I like Harry! He has brains, ambition, and works harder than any 10 men...but always for the wrong things.  What separates Harry from the winners of life's lottery is that he is a self-made man, or he's trying.  Harry never played ball with the establishment and the thugs that are protected and allowed to flourish do so because they have sold their souls to the power structure.  Not Harry!  He has ideas!  He has an angle!  He has one sultry dame!  Today we look at a Greek tragedy of a Film Noir film, 1950's "Night and the City," directed by Jules Dassin.

Gene Tierney! She's nightclub singer Mary at the Silver Fox...the best role for dames in these films, just ask Veronica Lake. Mary is sultry and a lousy judge of boyfriends, as Harry (Richard Widmark) is her beau. As our film begins Harry wants money from her for one of his "brilliant" ideas. Poor Mary, her heart is broken.  She loves Harry for who he is and money does not play into it. Unfortunately for Harry, he pedals his good ideas with 50% honesty and 50% grift to powerful unforgiving people. The owner of the Silver Fox, Philip (Francis L. Sullivan) is onto him but his younger and very sultry wife Helen (Googie Withers) believes he's her ticket to riches.  Uh oh, always with big ideas, Harry enters the world of big time wrestling. Now he cons a few big time wrestlers to let him promote them taking on the ruthless promoter Kristo (Herbert Lom).

Uh oh, again. Powerful Philip finds out his wife Helen is into Harry, and now he wants Harry dead.  Philip is clever and uses all the thugs in the city, including Kristo, to converge on Harry.  Now Harry's world is collapsing and he is desperate.  Sadly for Mary, who still loves him, her heart is destined to be nuked by her ambitious beau.  However much of a con man Harry is, his pursuers are 100 times more evil.  In Harry, we see the capacity for good, for love, for making this a better world...sadly, the seedier elements of London put in power by a demented power and social structure will not allow Harry's flower to bloom.

Will Mary make it to the final credits in one piece and unsoiled?  Would a modern remake of this film do well in using female wrestlers such as Gail Kim, or Jade and Lotus from the Asian Invasion as plot devices instead of sweaty grunting men?  Is there even a prayer that Harry will be able to overcome a post-war London in all its cruelty and lack of mercy to succeed and give Mary a good life?  Gritty, seedy, and an exclamation point of social commentary, this movie might just be the Film Noir version of the maxim 'nice guys finish last.' See "Night and the City."