Night and the City

Poor Harry Fabian. He's a sap, a sucker, an opportunist and a two-bit hustler. And he's the lead character in a noir picture, so you just know things will not go well for him. He begins the film on the run. Even in the opening moments, you know he's used to it.

As played by Richard Widmark, Fabian is calculating and naive, manipulative and painfully innocent, and nearly always in way over his head. Here's a guy who desperately wants to be somebody, to provide a life of ease and plenty to the one he loves. But he doesn't understand that ease and plenty are words that do not go together.

Fabian lives in London, photographed in beautiful black and white by Max Greene. This is a London of menace and long shadows, of big dreams and big friends and betrayal in, of all things, the sunlight. Under the direction of Jules Dassin, NIGHT AND THE CITY dares Fabian to guess what's around that next corner, what's going on behind peoples' eyes. Poor Harry, poor poor Harry. He isn't any good at it at all.

NIGHT AND THE CITY works because he feel for Harry, scoundrel that he is, and we root for him to find that life of ease and plenty. But this is a noir picture, and we know how things go. So we root anyway, and we try to look around the corners and behind the eyes, and we revel in a job well don.