The Sleeping City **** (1950, Richard Conte, Coleen Gray, Richard Taber, Peggy Dow, Alex Nicol, John Alexander) – 2021 Classic Movie Review 11,441

‘DANGER STALKS THE SILENT STREETS IN… THE SLEEPING CITY’ (1950).

Director George Sherman’s 1950 black and white film noir crime thriller The Sleeping City stars Richard Conte as a police detective called Fred Rowan of the Confidential Squad, who pretends to be a doctor in order to find a killer hiding in a hospital where an intern is murdered and another commits suicide after they have been stealing drugs to pay off their gambling debts.

Rowan goes undercover as intern ‘Fred Gilbert’, gets involved with attractive nurse Ann Sebastian (Coleen Gray) and makes friends with the elevator operator, Pop Ware (Richard Taber).

It is a gritty, excitingly handled crime drama with a better-than-average Universal Pictures production, a good realist style and credible acting, led by a convincing Conte performance. It has a better-than-average script, too, by Jo Eisinger (story and screenplay), along typical film noir lines of the theme of betrayal. Jo Eisinger (1909–1991) is also the writer of two of the best film noirs, Gilda (1946) and Night and the City (1950), as well as Crime of Passion (1957).

It is notable for its cinematography by William Miller, as one of the few films of the era shot entirely on location.

The Sleeping City is filmed where it is supposed to happen – in New York’s Bellevue Hospital. There is a prologue with Conte telling the audience that the story is ‘completely fictional’ and did not take place at Bellevue or New York City.  The New York Mayor, William O’Dwyer, objected to the script as harming the reputation of the city-run hospital and insisted on adding the prologue.

Also in the cast are Coleen Gray as Ann Sebastian, Richard Taber as Pop Ware, John Alexander as Inspector Gordon, Peggy Dow as Kathy Hall, Alex Nicol as Dr Steve Anderson, Carroll Ashburn, Frank Baxter, Dort Clark, Mickey Cochran, Russell Collins, James Daly, Henry Hart, Ralph Hertz, Tom Hoirer, Richard Kendrick, Jack Lescoulie, James Little, William Martel, Rod McLennan, Mrs Priestly Morrison, James O’Neill, Herbert Ratner, Hugh Reilly, Ernest Sarracino, Robert Strauss, Mimi Strongin, Michael Strong, Victor Sutherland, Frank M Thomas, Frank Twedell, and James J Van Dyk.

© Derek Winnert 2021 Classic Movie Review 11,441

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