This film about a homicide investigation was apparently groundbreaking in being filmed entirely on location. While the NYC street scenes are gritty, almost everything else about this police drama is atrocious. The acting is uniformly terrible. Fitzgerald is supposed to be a lovable little Irishman, but he's just goofy. The script is unfocused and uninteresting. While Dassin would go on to make some fine films, his direction here is lackluster. The most annoying thing about this film is the unnecessary narration by producer Hellinger, who seems to be narrating for the blind; for example, when there is a shot of the sun rising, he informs us that the sun is rising.
Review of The Naked City
