The Naked City

In the late hours of a hot New York summer night, two men subdue Jean Dexter, an ex-model, with chloroform, then drown her in her bathtub. When one of them gets conscience-stricken while drunk, the other kills him and throws his body into the East River.

The medical examiner determines that Jean was murdered; experienced detective Lt. Dan Muldoon and novice Det. Jimmy Halloran are assigned to the case. At the scene, they interrogate Martha Swenson, Jean's housekeeper, about Jean's boyfriends, and she tells them about a Philip Henderson. They also discover a bottle of sleeping pills. Halloran questions the doctor who prescribed them, Lawrence Stoneman, as well as Ruth Morrison, another model and Jean's friend. Back at the police station, Muldoon questions Frank Niles, Jean's ex-boyfriend, who lies about everything, claiming only a business relationship with Jean and denying knowing Ruth, although they are actually engaged. Because of his lies, Niles becomes the prime suspect, but he has an alibi. Later, Muldoon deduces from the bruises on Jean's neck that she was killed by at least two men.

Jean's parents, Mr. and Mrs. Batory, arrive in New York to formally identify the body, but they were estranged from Jean and know nothing helpful. Then the detectives learn that Niles sold a gold cigarette case stolen from Stoneman, then purchased a one-way airline ticket to Mexico. They also discover that one of Jean's rings was stolen from the home of a wealthy Mrs. Hylton. At Mrs. Hylton's Park Avenue apartment, the police learn that the ring actually belonged to her socialite daughter, who, to their surprise, turns out to be Ruth Morrison.

Learning that Ruth's engagement ring is also stolen property, Muldoon and Halloran take Ruth to Niles' apartment, where they coincidentally interrupt someone trying to murder him. The killer takes a shot at the cops and escapes down the fire escape onto the nearby elevated train. When questioned about the stolen jewelry, Niles claims that it was all presents from Jean, which reveals his true relationship with her. Realizing she is engaged to a criminal, Ruth slaps him. Niles is then arrested for the jewel thefts, but the murder case remains open.

The body of small-time burglar Peter Backalis is recovered from the East River; he died within hours of Jean, and Halloran believes the two deaths are connected. Muldoon, although skeptical, lets him pursue the lead and assigns two veteran detectives on the squad to help Halloran with the legwork. Through further methodical but tedious investigation, Halloran discovers that Backalis's accomplice on a jewelry store burglary was Willie Garzah, a former wrestler who plays the harmonica. While Halloran and his team canvass the Lower East Side using an old publicity photograph of Garzah, Muldoon demands Niles identify Jean's mystery boyfriend. He reveals that "Henderson" is Dr. Stoneman.

At Stoneman's office, Muldoon uses Niles to trap the married, respectable physician into confessing that he fell in love with Jean, only to learn that she and Niles were using him in order to rob his society friends. Niles then confesses to planning the thefts, but says Backalis and Garzah performed them, then killed Jean, wanting a larger cut; then Garzah killed Backalis. Halloran and Muldoon have independently identified the same killer.

Meanwhile, Halloran finally locates Garzah and tries to trick Garzah into accompanying him, but Garzah sees through the ruse. The ex-wrestler rabbit punches the rookie detective, briefly knocking him unconscious, and attempts to disappear in the crowded city; but as police descend upon the neighborhood, he panics and draws attention to himself by shooting a blind man's guide dog on the pedestrian walk of the Williamsburg Bridge. Garzah attempts to flee over the bridge but, as police approach from both directions, he starts climbing one of the towers and is shot and wounded. High on the tower, Garzah refuses to surrender; gunfire is exchanged, and he is hit again and falls to his death.

As a trashman sweeps up yesterday's newspapers, the narration concludes: "There are eight million stories in the naked city. This has been one of them."

Producer Mark Hellinger, who also narrated the film, was only 44 when he died of a heart attack on December 21, 1947, after reviewing the final cut of the film at his home.[4]

The visual style of The Naked City was inspired by New York photographer Weegee, who published a book of photographs of New York life titled Naked City (1945).[5] Weegee was hired as a visual consultant on the film, and is credited with helping to craft its imagery.[6] But film historian William Park has argued that, despite Weegee's work on the film and its title coming from Weegee's earlier work, the film owes its visual style more to Italian neorealism rather than Weegee's photographic work.[7]

The movie features the uncredited film debuts of Kathleen Freeman, Bruce Gordon, James Gregory, Nehemiah Persoff, and John Randolph in small roles. Randolph, along with Paul Ford, who also had a small part, was appearing at the time on the New York stage in Command Decision. John Marley, Arthur O'Connell, David Opatoshu, and Molly Picon had small, uncredited roles.

The musical scoring process was contentious. Hellinger allowed Dassin to assign a former M-G-M colleague, the arranger George Bassman, to compose the music. Hellinger found this so unsatisfactory that, on the night before he died, he begged his own first choice, Miklós Rózsa, to step in. Rózsa concentrated on the climactic chase and epilogue, while Frank Skinner scored the early scenes. Rózsa later compiled a "Mark Hellinger Suite" of music from his three Hellinger pictures (including The Killers and Brute Force). The Naked City epilogue, "Song of a Great City", was Rózsa's tribute to the producer.[8]

• The film was the inspiration for a half-hour television series of the same name, which used the film's famous concluding line. The characters of Muldoon and Halloran initially returned in the series, but they were now played by John McIntire and James Franciscus. The series ran for a single season in 1958 to 1959, earning an Emmy Award nomination as Best Drama. It was resurrected in Fall 1960 as an hour-long drama, which ran from October 1960 to September 1963.[13]
• The film inspired two television films, Naked City: Justice with a Bullet and Naked City: A Killer Christmas, starring Scott Glenn as Muldoon and Courtney B. Vance as Halloran. They aired on Showtime in October and December 1998 respectively.
• A case directly based on the plot of The Naked City was included as DLC for the 2011 video game L.A. Noire, featuring similar characters and an ending where the culprit is killed as he tries to climb up a tower.

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• The Naked City at IMDb
• The Naked City at Rotten Tomatoes
• The Naked City at the TCM Movie Database
• The Naked City at AllMovie
• The Naked City at the American Film Institute Catalog
• The Naked City is available for free viewing and download at the Internet Archive