Cry of the City **** (1948, Victor Mature, Richard Conte, Shelley Winters, Fred Clark) – Classic Movie Review 2162

Director Robert Siodmak’s notable 1948 thriller stars Victor Mature as a cop, Police Lieutenant Candella, who sets out to hunt down his old school buddy, petty crook Martin Rome (Richard Conte), who has shot a policeman.

Rome, wounded and under guard in the prison hospital ward, refuses to help slimy lawyer W A Niles (Berry Kroeger) clear his client by confessing to another crime. Candella must check Niles’s allegations but, when Rome fears that Candella will implicate his young girlfriend Teena Riconti (Debra Paget), he will stop at nothing to protect her.

The fairly regulation, routine pulp-fiction plot, based on Henry Edward Helseth’s novel The Chair for Martin Rome, is lifted high by Richard Murphy and Ben Hecht’s incisive screenplay, Siodmak’s imaginative, suspenseful direction, Lloyd Ahern’s atmospheric black and white location cinematography and a series of eye-catching acting turns, particularly Conte’s disturbing performance as a sadistic murderer.

Mature, Shelley Winters (as Brenda Martingale) and Hope Emerson (as a scary crooked masseuse Rose Given) are also on especially fine form, and Paget makes a strong impression in her first movie, aged only 15.

Also in the cast are Mimi Aguglia, Tommy Cook, Fred Clark, Betty Garde (as Miss Pruett), Roland Winters,Walter Baldwin, June Storey, Tito Vuolo, Konstantin Shayne, Howard Freeman, Martin Begley, Kathleen Howard, Ed Hinton, Tiny Francone, Jane Nigh, Vito Scotti, Michael Sheridan, Robert Karnes, Charles Tannen, Charles Wagenheim, George Melford and George Magrill.

© Derek Winnert 2015 – Classic Movie Review 2162