Chicago - 12 Uhr Mitternacht

Unless you've the skill of an O. Henry, it's pretty ridiculous to talk about the spirit of a city, even as a generalization. But when that "spirit" takes human form and joins the local police force, really it's too much! Whatever induced scriptwriter Steve Fisher to introduce this bizarrely extraneous element into his otherwise tight little tale of the seamier side of Chicago, it was a mistake.

Fortunately, the assignment was handed to John H. Auer, who was most definitely the class director of the Republic stable. The action scenes here are handled with his usual vigorous finesse and there's plenty of excitement. The movie was actually lensed on location in Chicago, the city's streets made forcefully real by John Russell's deft photography.

Gig Young registers okay as the hero, while Chill Wills is saddled with the "spirit". However there are top performances by seasoned players like Edward Arnold, Marie Windsor, William Talman, Paula Raymond, and Wally Cassell as the mechanical man. Mala Powers is suitably cast as "Angel Face".

I can't wait to see the DVD release of this film with the features and commentary because it is one of those rare Noir films that stay with you. Not so much for the average domestic problems that Gig Young's character displays but more for his relationship with Mala Powers and their great quotable lines:

Sally "Angel Face" Connors, dressed in a stripper's costume to Johnny Kelly- "Come here." Kelly's reply: "I've been there."

And Angel Face's great speech explaining her disillusionment: "I'm sick of this town. I'm with you Johnny. When I first came to this town I was gonna be... oh there were a lotta things I was gonna be- become famous. But Chicago's the big melting pot, and I got melted but good".

And there are also the throw-away lines in the bar: Waitress to Bartender: "Two Old Fashions- no ice, no water, no sugar, no grenadine".

"City That Never Sleeps" has a light step and has so many quirky little characters that you might wonder who the story is about. The film does focus on certain characters to make its point, is sometimes great to look at for its night-lit location photography and has some nice noir humor.

Gig Young has the unflappable charm and bon vivant attitude that almost gets in the way of his disillusioned cop Johnny Kelly. Kelly is the ultimate Everyman who has become a cop because his father wanted him to, and whose wife unwittingly emasculates him because she earns more money that he.

All in all, "City That Never Sleeps" is worth catching for its noir look and some good performances.

This film set in Chicago in 1952 starts ponderously with a voice-over of 'the voice of the city', strangely that of actor Chill Wills (whose voice is more that of a cowpoke or a ranch hand, thus highly unsuitable for this purpose), who then appears in the crime story as a ghostly police sergeant representing the spirit of the city. Really, we could have done without those affectations, and Wills's acting attempts to be mysterious are worse. However, setting all that aside, the rest of the film is a pretty straightforward crime drama which is very good. Gig Young plays a disillusioned policeman vacillating between leaving and staying with his wife and quitting and keeping his job. One wants to kick him so that he stops dithering, but the story requires him to be like that. There are some strong performances: Mala Powers is good as a wild love interest of Young's, Edward Arnold is suave and persuasive as a bent criminal lawyer, Marie Windsor as usual is svelte and corrupt, and William Talman is very effective as a bonkers criminal who wants to shoot everybody, and nearly does. It's all good entertainment, if you look the other way when the pontificating is going on. One needs to take it with a pinch of paprika (the director, John Auer, was Hungarian).

Contrary to the croonings of Liza Minnelli and Frank Sinatra, The City That Never Sleeps is not New York, New York but Chicago, Illinois. At least it is in John H. Auer's 1953 movie of that name, sort of a noir-inflected Grand Hotel or Dinner At Eight, that opens and closes with floodlit vistas of the wedding-cake Wrigley Building. Several characters' lives intersect in an urban crime drama that even offers a touch of the fanciful.

Gig Young, at the center, plays a cop who's dissatisfied with his job and with his marriage (his wife, Paula Raymond, makes more money than he does). Off hours, he hangs around a strip club called The Silver Frolics on Wabash Avenue to see, both on stage and backstage, headliner Mala Powers. That relationship is a rocky as his marriage, and she's as unhappy with her lot as he with his (`Whaddaya want me to do? Crawl into a deep freeze?' she taunts him during yet another breakup). Then Young heads to the precinct for the graveyard shift, riding in a prowl car with a new partner he's never met before (Chill Wills, who also plays the unseen `Voice of the City').

During Young's nocturnal tour he meets up again and again with the various players in the plot. There's rich, crooked lawyer Edward Arnold, who blackmails him into burglarizing some incriminating papers; his two-timing wife, Marie Windsor; former magician turned criminal William Talman; his own brother (Ron Hagerthy) who's now Talman's apprentice; his pop (Otto Hulett), a police veteran; and a `mechanical man' (Gregg Warren) who entertains passersby in the Silver Frolics' window.

Some of the ties among the characters are up front, others furtive, to be doled out as the plots thicken. By the end (Poverty Row having learned the lessons MGM taught a couple of decades earlier in the titles cited above), there's tragedy and heartache, reappraisals and reconciliations. There's even a character who vanishes as mysteriously as he materialized – a whiff of the supernatural which curiously fails to leave any influence on the way the stories unfold.

The City That Never Sleeps shows the right breadth for a big, urban story – from Arnold's moderne penthouse to Young's middle-class flat to the raffish alleys running off Wabash Avenue. Director of photography John Russell (later to film Psycho) helps Auer out with some crafty touches (a telephone dial glowing from a flashlight shone upon it comes to mind). It's not a haunting movie, but it's a satisfying one – a title that did Republic Pictures proud.

Chicago cop Johnny Kelly wants to run away, from his job with the police force, and from his perceived mundane marriage. Hoping to flee Chicago with his stripper girlfriend Angel Face, he keeps putting it off with bouts of cold feet. Then one night when Johnny is assigned a new partner, Angel finally grows tired of false hopes and promises, just as Johnny is tempted by the dark side to finally realise both their dreams, but other factors are heading their way.....

Directed by John H. Auer and starring Gig Young as Kelly, City That Never Sleeps was brought to us out of the low budget Republic Pictures studio. Oddly fusing film-noir with fantastical elements makes for a most intriguing watch, yet it's very much a slog to get to a point where you feel your time has been worth it. But crucially it is worth the wait, lots of character strands all thread together to give us an exciting, and well executed climax, tho the fantastical finish point is something of a head scratcher to me personally. It's a weird film in many ways, and one that probably needs repeat viewings to fully grasp {and appreciate} what the hell is going on with all these characters. The weird feel is emphasised by John L. Russell's {Psycho & The Cabinet of Caligari} grimly lighted photography, who utilises the sparseness of the actual Chicago locations to great effect.

Known to be a favourite film of Martin Scorsese, City That Never Sleeps is actually a little better than it's B movie tagging. But it remains a film that one feels should have been much better. It's alright to fuse more than a couple of genre's, but you have to make it work convincingly within the structure of the plot{s}, and realistically they only just manage to pull it off, courtesy of a fine, if weird, ending. 6/10 but it could go either way upon a further viewing.