While the City Sleeps [Import]

Fritz Lang's next-to-last Hollywood endeavor was this cynical newspaper melodrama highlighted by a fine ensemble cast. "While the City Sleeps" (1956) does not rank among the legendary director's masterpieces, yet he handles the multiple storylines with atmospheric verve. Intriguingly enough, Lang's attention remains focused on the modern media environment rather than the "Lipstick Killer" subplot. Released toward the end of the noir cycle, "While the City Sleeps" rises above its B-movie budget and deserves to be seen more than once.

The best of Fritz Lang's `newspaper trilogy' of noirs that ended his Hollywood career in the 50s, While the City Sleeps is very good thriller that could have been a great one but still manages to be satisfying enough to forgive its shortcomings. It's certainly got a killer premise and cynicism to spare. When the old-style self-made boss of a media empire dies, his playboy son Vincent Price creates a new post for an executive to do the real work for him - and sets the three candidates the task of tracking down the `Lipstick Killer,' with the winner taking all. The closest to an honest man among them is Thomas Mitchell's old-school newspaper editor, with George Sanders' wire service chief better connected at the best restaurants and hotels than he is on the crime beat and James Craig's picture chief deciding the best way to get the job is to sleep with Price's would-be Lady MacBeth wife Rhonda Fleming. The closest we have to a hero is Dana Andrews' Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist - respected, well-connected, well-liked, a bit too fond of a drink (no acting required there) but his ambition `blunted by kindness.' Initially drawn in as an ally of Mitchell, he soon becomes as hungry as the rest of them, using his girlfriend as bait without even asking her and not above smooching with Ida Lupino's glamorous gossip columnist afterwards. John Drew Barrymore's thinly-drawn homicidal mother's boy may be a psychopath, but they all KNOW what they're doing and do it anyway...

RKO Radio Pictures were almost at the end of the road when they made this in 1956 and towards the end you definitely get the feeling that this could have benefited from a bigger budget - the final chase in particular veers too close to the perfunctory. Although Lang's direction keeps its grip, visually it's fairly straightforward: he might be returning to vaguely similar ground as M with another disturbed killer, but he rarely manages to hide the fact that he's working on fairly flatly lit standing sets that don't offer much chance for mood or expression. But, if you can overlook the terrifying sight of Price in shorts and socks, there's still much to admire, from the freely flowing vitriol to its depiction of a cutthroat multimedia empire encompassing wire, print and television, not to mention a surprisingly tense sequence of trying to keep a scoop secret not from other papers but from the staff of their own. It's also interesting to note the way it inadvertently set the tone for many giallos that would follow, not least with its culpable flawed hero and the black-gloved sexually motivated killer who is almost his mirror image. The final scene unfortunately wraps things up a tad too happily, displaying an unconvincing display of morality and just desserts at odds with the rest of the film, but while it's not a great film, While the City Sleeps still manages to be a very good one.

Exposure's PAL DVD offers a surprisingly good transfer in Lang's intended fullframe rather than the faux `SuperScope' ratio that masked off the top and bottom of the image used on its US theatrical release (the film was released in that cropped 2:1 ratio in the US). Where the US DVD-R is a little too bright and soft in places, Exposure's release is better graded and thankfully not a worn public domain print - focus and detail are strong and there's only a minimal amount of damage to the master. Extras on the UK DVD are a rather ropey looking theatrical trailer that looks like it was downloaded from a faulty internet connection and good press book, stills and poster art galleries that are annoyingly `locked' so you have to sit through several long slide shows without being able to fast forward if you're looking for a particular image, though there are some shots from deleted scenes implying Barrymore had a much larger role before the final edit.

An all star cast is effortlessly handled by Lang who shows a very modern view of cut-throat office life. A joy to watch and very up to date. It would play well in any theater today.