According to Eddie M the stars of this B picture, Anne Bancroft, Anthony Quinn and Farley Granger, felt it was beneath their talents, with Granger going so far as to publicly call it "preachy, trite and pedestrian". Well, he's two thirds right. Certainly this film embraces the cliche, especially in its dialogue (with lines like "Now I finally see you for what you really are") and the production has "undistinguished" written all over it with unmemorable cinematography and Japan Town in Los Angeles doing a poor job of standing in for Brooklyn (doubt if there was a Bank Of Tokyo branch in Gotham in 1950!). However, to my ear at least, at no point does Maxwell Shayne's dialogue or direction get up on a soapbox, so to speak, but rather is content to tell a somewhat improbable but fairly entertaining story without spurious social consciousness getting in the way. Even Peter Graves' newsman, usually a surrogate for Stanley Kramereque, messagey writing, soft peddles the "poor wasted urban youth" stuff. So I would have to dispute Mr. Granger on the "preachy" part and maybe that's why I watched the whole thing instead of skipping ahead to Eddie's closing remarks, as I often do with less than great Noir Alley offerings. Or maybe it was the pleasure of watching three fine actors doing solid work; Quinn just before he hit it big, Bancroft long before she hit it big, and Granger just as he was starting not to hit it big. I guess what I'm saying is that if you give it a chance and aren't too tough on the writer/director then you may have a pretty good time, as well. C plus.
Review of The Naked Street
