Night and the City The Criterion Collection

Product Description Two-bit hustler Harry Fabian (Richard Widmark) aches for a life of ease and plenty. Trailed by an inglorious history of go-nowhere schemes, he stumbles upon a chance of a lifetime in the form of legendary wrestler Gregorius the Great (Stanislaus Zbyszko). But there is no easy money in this underworld of shifting alliances, bottomless graft, and pummeled flesh?and soon Fabian learns the horrible price of his ambition. Luminously shot in the streets of London, Jules Dassin?s Night and the City is film noir of the first order and one of the director?s crowning achievements. Amazon.com Richard Widmark never had better exercise for his Cagney-like bouncing-ball energy than Night and the City, a classic film noir about a hustler's meteoric flame-out. Although acknowledged as one of the great noir pictures, it's actually set and shot in London, which gives an exotic, displaced novelty to the usual noir universe. Widmark's performance as Harry Fabian is a jibbering, wheedling, giggling tour de force, as Harry schemes his way to setting up a wrestling match and finally establishing himself as a "somebody." Instead, he manages to irritate the underworld heavies (memorably, Herbert Lom and Francis L. Sullivan) whose fingers are already deeply into the criminal pie. Gene Tierney and Googie Withers are the women--one good, one bad--who witness Harry's descent. This was director Jules Dassin's final project for a Hollywood studio before the blacklist forced him out, and he packs the film with tortured camera angles and spidery noir shadows; the movie's a real visual clambake. Night and the City was remade, tiredly, with Robert De Niro in 1992. Bonus: See how strongly this movie has influenced Martin Scorsese. --Robert Horton Additional Features A splendid Criterion package, with two illuminating Jules Dassin interviews: a 25-minute piece from French TV in 1972 (with long, grand anecdotes about L.B. Mayer and Elia Kazan), and a new video recollection. A 25-minute featurette comparing the film's two different scores (Franz Waxman's for the U.S. release, Benjamin Frankel's for the U.K.) is actually a fascinating comparison of the two different cuts of the picture, with scenes included from the British version--including a differently edited ending. Glenn Erickson's packed commentary gives everything you'd want to know about the movie, plus good stuff on the source novel. --Robert Horton