Customer Reviews

While the City Sleeps [VHS]

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Fritz Lang's next-to-last Hollywood endeavor was this cynical newspaper melodrama highlighted by a fine ensemble cast. "While the City Sleeps" (1956) does not rank among the legendary director's masterpieces, yet he handles the multiple storylines with atmospheric verve. Intriguingly enough, Lang's attention remains focused on the modern media environment rather than the "Lipstick Killer" subplot. Released toward the end of the noir cycle, "While the City Sleeps" rises above its B-movie budget and deserves to be seen more than once.

An all star cast is effortlessly handled by Lang who shows a very modern view of cut-throat office life. A joy to watch and very up to date. It would play well in any theater today.

RKO Radio Pictures present "WHILE THE CITY SLEEPS" (1949) (100 mins/B&W) (Dolby digitally remastered) --- Starring Dana Andrews, Ida Lupino, Rhonda Fleming, George Sanders, Vincent Price, John Barrymore & Thomas Mitchell --- Directed by Fritz Lang and released in May 30, 1956, our story line and film, Multi-plotted melodrama set in a newspaper office. Andrews is the hottest hack in the outfit. Price is the ambitious new boy - inheritor of his late father's media empire - who offers a shiny new position to the man who can track down the insane killer (Barrymore) who's terrorising the city. Lang, the master of this kind of material, crafts a gripping, fast-moving neo-noir - one of the best films of his late period.

Under Fritz Lang (Director), Bert E. Friedlob (Producer), Charles Einstein (Book Author), Casey Robinson (Screenwriter), Ernest Laszlo (Cinematographer), Guffroy Gilbert (Songwriter), Herschel Burke Gilbert (Composer (Music Score), Joseph Mullendore (Songwriter), Gene Fowler, Jr. (Editor), Carroll Clark (Art Director), Jack Mills (Set Designer), Norma (Costume Designer), Jack Solomon (Sound/Sound Designer), Gus Norin (Makeup), Ronnie R. Rondell (First Assistant Director) - - - - the cast includes Dana Andrews (Edward Mobley), Ida Lupino (Mildred Donner), Rhonda Fleming (Dorothy Kyne), Sally Forrest (Nancy Liggett), George Sanders (Mark Loving), Thomas Mitchell (John Day Griffith), Vincent Price (Walter Kyne, Jr.), Howard Duff (Lt. Burt Kaufman), James Craig (Harry Kritzer), John Drew Barrymore (Robert Manners), Robert Warwick (Amos Kyne) - - - - - Film noir has sources not only in cinema but other artistic mediums as well...the low-key lighting schemes commonly linked with the classic mode are in the tradition of chiaroscuro and tenebrism, techniques using high contrasts of light and dark developed by 15th- and 16th-century painters associated with Mannerism and the Baroque...film noir's aesthetics are deeply influenced by German Expressionism, a cinematic movement of the 1910s and 1920s closely related to contemporaneous developments in theater, photography, painting, scultpture, and architecture...opportunities offered by the booming Hollywood film industry and, later, the threat of growing Nazi power led to the emigration of many important film artists working in Germany who had either been directly involved in the Expressionist movement or studied with its practitioners...Directors such as Fritz Lang, Robert Siodmak, and Michael Curtiz brought dramatic lighting techniques and a psychologically expressive approach to mise-en-scène with them to Hollywood, where they would make some of the most famous of classic noirs. Lang's 1931 masterwork, the German M, is among the first major crime films of the sound era to join a characteristically noirish visual style with a noir-type plot, one in which the protagonist is a criminal (as are his most successful pursuers). M was also the occasion for the first star performance by Peter Lorre, who would go on to act in several formative American noirs of the classic era ... featuring top performances from the '40s and '50s with outstanding drama and screenplays, along with a wonderful cast and supporting actors to bring it all together ... another winner from the vaults of almost forgotten film noir gems

SPECIAL FEATURES BIOS:

1. Dana Andrews

Date of Birth: 1 January 1909 - Covington County, Mississippi

Date of Death:17 December 1992 - Los Alamitos, California

2. Rhonda Fleming

Date of Birth: 10 August 1923 - Hollywood, California

Date of Death: Still Living

3. George Sanders

Date of Birth: 3 July 1906 - St. Petersburg, Russia

Date of Death: 25 April 1972 - Castelldefels, Barcelona, Spain

4. Howard Duff

Date of Birth: 24 November 1913 - Bremerton, Washington

Date of Death: 8 July 1990 - Santa Barbara, California

5. Vincent Price

Date of Birth: 27 May 1911 - St. Louis, Missouri

Date of Death: 25 October 1993 - Los Angeles, California

6. Fritz Lang (Director)

Date of Birth: 5 December 1890 - Vienna, Austria-Hungary [now Austria]

Date of Death: 2 August 1976 - Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, California

Hats off and thanks to Les Adams (collector/guideslines for character identification), Chuck Anderson (Webmaster: The Old Corral/B-Westerns.Com), Boyd Magers (Western Clippings), Bobby J. Copeland (author of "Trail Talk"), Rhonda Lemons (Empire Publishing Inc), Bob Nareau (author of "The Real Bob Steele") and Trevor Scott (Down Under Com) as they have rekindled my interest once again for Film Noir, B-Westerns and Serials --- looking forward to more high quality releases from the vintage serial era of the '20s, '30s & '40s and B-Westerns ... order your copy now from Amazon where there are plenty of copies available on VHS, stay tuned once again for top notch action mixed with deadly adventure --- if you enjoyed this title, why not check out VCI Entertainment where they are experts in releasing B-Westerns and Serials --- all my heroes have been cowboys!

Total Time: 100 min on VHS ~ United Home Video ~ (9/02/1994)

When a series of brutal sex murders plague the city that never sleeps, a bloody power struggle takes place inside of one of the most most prestigious newspapers in the city.

The legacy of Walter Kyne (the letter K is closely uppercase great resemblance to Charles Foster Kane, is not it?) Has passed to his son, a dilettante, superficial and banal human being, three names emerged as possible candidates: Griffith the city editor, Mark Loving the wire service editor and Harry Kritzer.

Of course we have the renegade in action at only one of them who "has no appetite for power," the last words to exchange with Kyne father before he died. Edward Mobley (Dana Andrews) The antihero of the plot is a friendly and efficient reporter who likes to drink openly in love with a coworker Nancy is fiercely determined only find the truth at any cost.

The search of the serial murderer is nothing but a cover to go into the insatiable, frenzied struggle to gain the favor of the new tycoon.

This film is far from being the most outstanding film of Fritz Lang but it is a brilliant satire - which would precede to The Sweet Smell of Success two years later.

I wish I could find alot more movies of this quality. Just don't see them out there. That's it, in less than 30 words.