Directed By William Dieterle
SYNOPSIS
Cops shut down Danny Haley's (Charlton Heston) gambling joint, leaving him without income. He and his pals (Ed Begley + Jack Webb) fleece a businessman (Don DeFore) for thousands of dollars. After losing everything, the businessman hangs himself. The businessman's unseen brother (Mike Mazurki) starts killing them off one by one, Danny ditches his girl (Lizabeth Scott,) heads to Los Angeles and then to Las Vegas to escape his fate.
It's amazing how many good little film noirs there are out there that are not well known, like Dark City.
Dark City marked the film debut for Charlton Heston, and its obvious from the start why he became a star. His strong, tough screen persona is there from the first frame. He's surrounded by many familiar faces that are nearly all uniformly good.
Much like with Humphrey Bogart in Dead Reckoning, Lizabeth Scott has little chemistry with her leading man and her nightclub singing duties take up too much time of the film. They really only needed to show her singing once to establish what she did for a living, though she does have a pleasing voice.
Dark City isn't as overly artsy with lighting or unique camera angles like Touch of Evil (also starring Heston) but is still identifiably noir due to its dark subject matter and less than heroic characters.
Not showing the psychopathic brother builds great suspense as the audience doesn't know what he looks like (apart from the ring on his hand) anymore than the cops or Haley and his crew do. Apart from that, the story and its execution is pretty pedestrian.
Dark City is far from a definitive noir, but fans of the style shouldn't miss it. There is plenty to like.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment