While the City Sleeps **** (1956, Dana Andrews, Rhonda Fleming, George Sanders, Vincent Price, Ida Lupino, Howard Duff, Thomas Mitchell) – Classic Movie Review 2,184

Fritz Lang’s fine 1956 film noir While the City Sleeps is inspired by the Chicago Lipstick Killer, and stars Dana Andrews, Rhonda Fleming, George Sanders and Vincent Price.

The great director Fritz Lang’s bizarrely plotted and eccentrically characterised 1956 newspaper drama film While the City Sleeps sadly proved his last American movie. But at least he went out with a little bang with this fine film noir, which, despite long neglect, has gradually picked up status and a reputation over the years.

With a nimble and nifty screenplay by Casey Robinson, based on the novel The Bloody Spur by Charles Einstein, the story is about playboy Walter Kyne (Vincent Price), who inherits the news media corporation of elderly dying tycoon Amos Kyne (Robert Warwick) and decides to create a new position of Executive Director as his second-in-command.

The lucrative new job will go to whichever of his media executives (George Sanders as Mark Loving, Thomas Mitchell as Jon Day Griffith or James Craig as “Honest” Harry Kritzer) is the first to solve the sensational Lipstick Killer serial sex murder case in New York.

The killings are being perpetrated by a young psycho called Robert Manners, aka The Lipstick Killer (John Drew Barrymore, aka John Barrymore Jr), and the winner must catch the murderer.

Dana Andrews stars as reporter Edward Mobley, who agrees to help his friend Griffith, although he is himself not interested in the job, while Loving manipulates star writer Mildred Donner to try get information out of Mobley.

Ida Lupino as Mildred Donner, Rhonda Fleming as Dorothy Kyne, Sally Forrest as Nancy Liggett and Howard Duff as Lt Burt Kaufman are also up to their necks in the plot of a star-studded B-movie that is splendidly dark and cynical – and has been perennially underrated and neglected.

While the City Sleeps is most forcefully directed by a beady-eyed Lang, who views humanity and the media with an equal lack of sympathy. Ernest Laszlo’s noirish black and white cinematography is ideal.

Also in the cast are Vladimir Sokoloff, Ralph Peters, Andrew Lupino, Carleton Carpenter, Mae Marsh, Sandy White, Larry J Blake, Celia Lovsky and Edward Hinton.

Real-life married couple Duff and Lupino share no scenes in the movie.

Charles Einstein’s 1953 novel The Bloody Spur was inspired by the case of Chicago serial killer William Heirens, aka the Lipstick Killer. The film’s script mentions Heirens’s crimes and suggests that its villain, also known as the Lipstick Killer, is a copycat killer.

It is set in New York, but filmed in Los Angeles, with some adjustments to locations and rail cars.

It was made by Bert E Friedlob Productions for United Artists and sold to RKO Radio Pictures for a profit of $500,000. Some props are recycled from RKO’s film Citizen Kane – hence props with a large K in a circle and the name Kyne for the publishing tycoons.

It was released on 16 May 1956 (US).

While the City Sleeps is directed by Fritz Lang, runs 100 minutes, is made by Bert E Friedlob Productions, is released by RKO Radio Pictures, is written by Casey Robinson, based on the novel The Bloody Spur by Charles Einstein, is shot in black and white by Ernest Laszlo, is produced by Bert E Friedlob, and is scored by Herschel Burke Gilbert.

The cast are Dana Andrews as Edward Mobley, Rhonda Fleming as Dorothy Kyne, George Sanders as Mark Loving, Howard Duff as Lt Burt Kaufman, Thomas Mitchell as Jon Day Griffith, Vincent Price as Walter Kyne, Sally Forrest as Nancy Liggett, John Drew Barrymore (credited as John Barrymore Jr) as Robert Manners (The Lipstick Killer), James Craig as “Honest” Harry Kritzer, Ida Lupino as Mildred Donner, Robert Warwick as Amos Kyne, Mae Marsh as Mrs. Manners, Ralph Peters as Gerald Meade, Sandy White as Judith Felton, Leonard Carey as Steven the butler, Vladimir Sokoloff as plumber George “Pop” Pilski, Andrew Lupino, Carleton Carpenter, Larry J Blake, Celia Lovsky and Edward Hinton.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 2,184

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