Cry of the City

Cry of the City has good performances by Richard Conte and Victor Mature. Conte is great with his soft-spoken voice and shifty eyes. The best scenes though are with the bigger-than-life HOPE EMERSON! Her entry down the long corridor, eating the pancakes, and trying to strong-arm Conte are all memorable, cult-ish moments.

Robert Siodmak took to the city streets of New York for much of the location shooting in CRY OF THE CITY and it gives the whole story much more credence. Furthermore, the classic B&W photography of the city streets, a study in sunlight and shadows, heightens the tense mood and atmosphere of an engrossing crime story.

VICTOR MATURE and RICHARD CONTE are adversaries, one good, the other bad, buddies who grew up together on the city streets. Mature is a police lieutenant whose mission it is to find Conte once he's escaped from jail, with most of the story involved in Mature's search for the ruthless thug who has committed several serious crimes including murder.

The final scenes with Mature finally cornering Conte in a church are filled with high tension, thanks to director Siodmak's expert direction. He gets fully developed characterizations from his principal actors, as well as the supporting cast which includes FRED CLARK, DEBRA PAGET, TOMMY COOK, SHELLEY WINTERS and a standout turn from HOPE EMERSON as a woman intent on a jewel heist.

New Yorkers will be especially interested in seeing the Third Ave. El appearing prominently in one of the lower Manhattan scenes, as well as other Manhattan shots that show the city as it existed in '48. A classic example of '40s film noir.

Had Cry Of The City been done at Warner Brothers in the Thirties this would have been perfect material for a James Cagney/Pat O'Brien film with the story of two childhood friends, one who goes into the police force and one who goes into a life of crime. Of course they would have to have been Irish because neither Cagney or O'Brien would have made convincing Italian protagonists as Cry Of The City has in its leads.

And the leads are Victor Mature and Richard Conte. Mature is good as the upright cop who makes it personal to go after Richard Conte who has now committed the ultimate sin, he's killed a cop. But like a film a year earlier for Mature, Kiss Of Death, the film is dominated by Richard Conte who plays a charismatic and fascinating villain just as Richard Widmark did in Kiss Of Death.

Unlike Widmark who is a loner, Conte is charming and is ruthless in his use of that charm. The film opens with him seriously wounded after shooting a police officer. But he recovers and is in a prison hospital awaiting trial. It's the death penalty for sure, but Conte does in fact charm his way into an escape (I won't say how) and from then on because of his wound has to rely on a lot of help including his own family.

Some other standout performances including an old girl friend, Shelley Winters whom he has obtain an unlicensed physician to tend him. Hope Emerson who is as evil as she was as the prison matron in Caged, plays a masseuse who Conte uses to obtain traveling money as the woman is quite mobbed up. Tommy Cook plays Conte's hero worshiping younger brother who realizes just how much he and the family were being used in the climax.

Most of all there's Berry Kroeger who plays one of his usual slime ball characters as a criminal attorney who indulges in a bit of criminality himself most discreetly behind the scenes. Kroeger split parts like that with George MacReady back in the day and is always fascinating to watch.

Most of all there is Richard Conte who should have merited Oscar consideration in one of his best screen performances.

I think this is an underrated (and under-publicized) film that sports an interesting story. Yes, it's a typical one of its day in that it highlights two boyhood friends who wind up on the opposite side of the law ("Angels With Dirty Face," etc.) but it is well done.

Victor Mature "Lt. Candella") and Richard Conte ("Martin Rome") both do a very credible job as the good and bad guys, respectively.

Shelley Winters, Debra Paget and Hope Emerson all provide solid female acting support in this little-known film noir. Emerson ("Rose Given") might be the least known of the three, but not to me since I am a big fan of the Peter Gunn TV series of the late 1950s in which she played a key role.

With film noir making a comeback in recent years, I hope someone puts this movie out on DVD.

You just know that slimy lawyer Niles (Kroeger) is going to get his somewhere along the line in this highly interesting noir. More a movie of parts than a whole, some of these parts nevertheless remain pretty memorable. Was there ever better tough guy than Richard Conte. Here he's wounded gangster Martin Rome getting his way with everyone, that is, until he runs into Rose. Now, whatever the 6'2", 230 lbs, Hope Emerson is, she's no rose. Her massage scene with Conte is priceless, and in my book, the movie's high point, one of the most amusingly unexpected and well calculated in all noir. At the same time, scope out the breakfast scene with Conte, where she fills her mouth like Godzilla churning up Tokyo, or where she manhandles the unfortunate cops trying to take her down. I hope there's a special place in Hollywood heaven for one-and-only characters like the hulking Emerson.

In fact, the film features a number of unusual and unheralded players that spice up the proceedings—Walter Baldwin as the trustee Orvy, crooked teeth and all; Betty Garde as plain- looking nurse Pruett, who takes no guff from anybody including cops; and Barry Kroeger as puffy-face lawyer Niles, an insult to his profession. These are not pretty people in the usual Hollywood sense, and I think one of the fascinations of noir is to feature such types at a time when movies prized good-looking people above all. Here, along with the shambling Emerson, they leave us with an impression of real city streets instead of a casting call along Hollywood and Vine.

Among the more conventional, it's fun to see a still slender Shelley Winters (Brenda) doing her cheap blonde bit as she fends off a tipsy masher in a bar. Her character sort of drops into the narrative out of nowhere, making me wonder whether something connective got edited out. Frankly, headliner Victor Mature (Candella) hasn't much to do except stand around and look handsomely imposing. Instead, co-star Conte gets all the best scenes, good lines, and audience interest. At the same time, something should be said for young Tommy Cook who makes a good gritty impact as Conte's younger brother.

Then too, check out director Siodmak's visual approach to the filming. Usually the light and shadow of expressionist noir takes place on a sound stage where control is absolute. But here, the imaginative Siodmak mixes expressionist light and shadow with location shooting to create an unusual overall effect. Note the number of location shots without the natural lighting that ordinarily would create a more documentary feel. It's a curious but effective blend. In passing—note too Siodmak's beautifully paced direction of the jailbreak sequence, a really suspenseful look at bureaucratic paper-shuffling, in this case, a police department.

The story itself is pretty shopworn—two friends growing up together in the ghetto, where one ends up becoming a cop, while the other turns to crime. In short, the sort of thing Cagney and O'Brien did in the 30's. Nonetheless, Siodmak's imaginative approach, plus the many interesting characters and entertaining vignettes make this version a noir worth catching up with.