Night and The City (1950)
Richard Widmark and Gene Tierney
An adaptation of a 1939 book by Gerald Kersh
Harry Fabian, an American grifter in London, originally an utterly despicable character, is made sympathetic here as a guy who just wants to be somebody. Driven by equal parts fear and daring, he’s always got a big idea. The actor reminds me of a vintage Steve Buscemi. Beginning scenes paint a detailed portrait of his character: spiffy, almost ostentatious, white shoes and checkered jacket, begging for attention, dressing the part even before he’s landed the gig he wants. “Who are you running away from now?” he is asked. “Chance of a lifetime,” he promises. But he’s always got a kind word for Molly, the flower lady at the Silver Fox club.
The camera angles in this movie are to be studied. The opening shot is Harry running in the lonely distance, followed by a shot from below as he rapidly descends a set of stairs; each conveys his restlessness, a constant life of action, a drive to get a leg up on the world. And once the action starts, it goes non-stop.
Harry’s “wife” is Mary Bristol, a cabaret singer, (in the book a hardened prostitute, with Harry being her pimp,) a woman whose love is taken advantage of; she always gives whatever she has to Harry, and she is even there for him in the end.
The relationship between Phil Nosseross and his wife is more than a sub-plot, it’s perhaps the most poignant part of the script. Like a modern version of Nancy and Bill Sikes from Oliver Twist, we are shown a panorama of life in the East End. Phil’s wife Helen is played by Googie Withers (The Lady Vanishes, The Dead of Night). Once she was Harry’s girl, but now she’s a kept woman, married to a wealthy provider she cannot leave. He counts the quid while she counts the days.
One night, Harry is trying to scam some audience members at a wrestling match and overhears a heated conversation between the Gregorius the Great and his son, racketeer wrestling promoter Kristo. The old man thinks his son’s sensational professional wrestling is crap that is destroying the respectable Olympic sport of Greco-Roman wrestling. (Remember when MMA first appeared as bare-knuckle cage fighting?)
Harry sees his golden ticket to be somebody. He just needs someone to front the 200 quid for a downpayment on his own gym. He gets it from Helen, in a slap-in-the-face betrayal of her husband.
I can’t wait another day. One more year living with that… I’ve got to get away from him, Harry. I must get away before I… That’s what the money’s for– the license. And you’re the only man I know who can get it. You’re gonna bribe, steal, murder– I don’t care what you do, but you’re gonna get me a license for my club now.
Kristo sees straight through Harry Fabian when he starts to muscle in on his action, and he sends The Strangler over to send a message… but Kristo is stopped cold by Harry’s successful, even inspired, con when his own father, Gregorius appears and tells him to back off. He has lent his name to Harry’s new Greco-Roman gym.
Harry has envisioned a grudge match, old vs. new, Nikolas of Athens vs. The Strangler. To prove once and for all whose style Kung-Fu is better.
The film is also a detailed study of the double-cross. Noseross plays his clever hand. He’ll only give Harry the $200 he needs to finance a match if it’s Lucha Libre. That’s where the real money is. So Harry, true to form, plans to double-cross Gregorius. But Nosseross knows about Harry helping Helen. Harry had stolen his wife, a woman that Phil had “bought and paid for.”
Meanwhile, a hot-head in the gym is never a good idea. When The Strangler comes by Harry’s gym to start up a fight… he’s successful. Tempers flare, Nikolas’ wrist is broken, and when Gregorius steps in, he knocks out the Strangler with a bear hug! But those kidney punches were savage…
Here is why this noir might be interesting to today’s generation. The long wrestling scene is inspired. It’s on par with Bob Backlund and The Iron Sheik; Hulk Hogan and Andre the Giant; Steve Austin, The Rock and Triple-H; Taya Valkyrie and Ivelisse!– Stanislaus Zbyszko and Mike Mazurki were both real-life professional wrestlers prior to acting in this movie. Those cauliflower ears ain’t prosthetic, folks.
That’s what I do to your clowns!
But it’s Gregorius’ last match. His death scene is well played, and we feel Kristo’s rage as his father dies in his arms. A thousand pounds on Harry’s head! And we can’t blame him. Poor Harry. He goes on the run, but finds no one he can trust not to sell him out.
This movie then offer’s one of cinema’s best chase scenes; I mean truly on par with Bullitt’s car chase. We follow Harry’s claustrophobic, careful steps through a ruined construction site, holding our breath as he hides. Ticking machinery matches the soundtrack as Harry is cornered in a wasteland of construction.
Helen leaves her husband and starts her own nightclub, and she’s got the experience and business acumen to make it a success. On the level. Helen thinks she has won, but when it is revealed the license Harry got her was a forgery, she goes crawling back to Nosseross, just as he predicted. Too late… and just as a last twist of the knife, Phil leaves the Silver Fox not to Helen, but to Molly, whose abuse from Helen guaranteed a shutout.
The only hope Harry has of redemption in the end is to allow Mary to take the blood money Kristo put on his head. She’d never do it, never, but Harry dies ironically crying out about her betrayal in one of the bleakest of film noir endings.
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