Night and the City

Synopsis: Harry Fabian is a London hustler with ambitious plans that never work out. One day, when he encounters the most famous Greco-Roman wrestler in the world, Gregorius, at a London wrestling arena run by his son Kristo, he dreams up a scheme that he thinks will finally be his ticket to financial independence. As Fabian attempts to con everyone around him to get his scheme to work, he of course only ends up conning himself. This is an interesting tale of blind ambition, self-deception, broken dreams, and how a man who always thinks he's ahead of the game ends up tripping himself very badly.
Director(s): Jules Dassin
Production: Criterion Collection
 
IMDB:
8.0
Rotten Tomatoes:
79%
NOT RATED
Year:
1950
96 min
367 Views


Night and the city.

The night is tonight,

tomorrow night...

or any night.

The city is London.

Mary?

Mary?

You won't find

any money there, Harry.

What do you mean,

spying on me?

I, uh-- I was just

looking for a cigarette.

Mmm.

Would I steal

from you?

- What makes you think I--

- Who are you running away from now?

Running? Me?

Now, you know me better than that.

- Three days and three nights, and not a word from you.

- Well, I've been very busy.

For all I knew, you were lying in the gutter

somewhere with a knife in your back.

Lying in the gutter?

Now, look, sweetheart.

I'll tell you what happened.

- I was in Birmingham.

- Birmingham?

Yes! There's a fellow up there

starting a new greyhound track.

And he wants me

for a partner.

It's the chance of a lifetime.

I'll be in on the ground floor.

I only expected to be gone for a day,

but when I saw that layout I stayed over.

And when you see--

Look, honey. Look, here's the plan.

How much?

- "How much"?

- Look, Harry, we've been through this a thousand times.

How much?

Oh. Mmm.

Well, all right.

For our share,

it's only 300.

- 300, and it's a life of ease and plenty.

- No!

- You've got the money. You've got it right here.

- Sure. Sure, I've got it.

But not for

any greyhound track.

- Why, last month it was--

- But this is different, Mary. This can't lose!

Oh, Harry, why can't you

ever grow up?

Harry, you gotta

get hold of yourself.

You can't go on forever

always running, always in a sweat.

Do you think I enjoy working

night after night at the Silver Fox...

getting drunks drunker?

But I'm sticking it out,

waiting for the day we can marry...

lead decent,

normal lives.

Remember them, Harry?

Nice people.

Nice to know and be with.

Remember the plans

they used to make?

The kind of life

they were going to live?

I just want to

be somebody.

I've got to hurry,

Harry.

You'd better hurry too.

- Nosseross is angry with you.

- Let him wait.

Him and his

big, fat belly.

I'm not leaving here.

You mean you're afraid to leave.

How much?

I... paid him everything

but five pounds.

He's the one that put up the money

for the football pool.

Wait here.

Come in!

- Adam!

- Open the windows!

Don't tell me you tried

cooking spaghetti again.

Yes! With the usual

disastrous results!

Mary, get that siphon bottle there!

Quickly!

- The soda?

- Yes! Hurry! Hurry!

- Here!

- Ohh!

Don't just stand there, woman!

Squirt! Squirt!

There.

You're just in time to enjoy

the most heavenly spaghetti dinner.

Aw, thanks, but I've just had

breakfast, unfortunately.

I admit it does look

a little overdone.

Oh, well.

Try again next week.

Probably starve doing it,

but I'll master it in the end, I promise.

That's the thing that

keeps us apart, you know.

Your spaghetti?

Yes, in a way.

When I'm having my spaghetti,

you're looking for your morning toast.

Do you think we might ever arrange our day

to meet somewhere around teatime?

Come on, sit down.

- Let me get these hideous monsters out of the way.

- Oh, he's cute!

- She.

- Well, she's cute.

The shops tell me it's the best-selling

design I've given them so far.

- Discouraging.

- You're probably pleased as punch.

Of course. Sit down

and really be comfortable.

Thanks, Adam,

but I've got to get on to work.

- I've come to ask for a favor.

- Name it.

- Could you let me have three pounds until tomorrow?

- Help yourself.

Punch the night bell. The old lady of

Threadneedle St. Is well stocked and generous.

- It does look like the Bank of England.

- Well, it should.

I spent half my youth

reproducing it.

- It's very good.

- Of course.

Wonderful!

You're very clever,

Adam.

I am about

unimportant things.

Help yourself.

Thanks, Adam.

I happen to need this right now for-

- Well, I didn't expect them to deliver the--

- Sure.

Harry's back.

You knew that,

didn't you?

These walls. Just one big, happy family.

He gets so excited,

almost like a child.

But anyone has to fight

not to get pulled in by his excitement.

- His ideas always have so much imagination.

- I know.

- Harry's an artist without an art.

- What does that mean?

Well, that's something that'd

make a man very unhappy, Mary-

groping for the right lever,

the means with which to express himself.

Yes, he is that,

isn't he?

I like that, Adam.

It's a very nice thought.

Yes, but it

can be dangerous.

Oh. No, you don't.

Not again.

Every time you talk, you mix me up so

I can't think straight for a week.

- Thanks, Adam.

- Anything.

Anytime.

- Hi, hi, Harry!

- Evening, Maggie!

Can't win, boys!

Watch it!

Evening, boys.

- How's Fabian's stocks and shares, Harry?

- Never mind!

- When are you gonna open up your Paris office, Harry?

- Ehh!

- Lovely flowers!

- Evening, Molly, my girl!

Hello, Harry.

How are you?

Well, you're sober.

Trade must be slow.

Slow?

Disintegrating.

- You need a fresh carnation.

- Thanks, Molly. Put it on my account.

- That's all right, my dear. I'll trust you.

- There you are, Bert.

Bless you, Harry. Half a crown!

Don't mention it.

If you girls want to work for my husband,

you've got to start offi on the right foot.

You must understand the rules--

what he'll stand for and what he won't.

First, no stealing from the gentlemen

while you're in the club.

What you do outside

is none of his business...

but in here we take it from them legitimate

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Jo Eisinger

Jo Eisinger (1909 - 1991) was a film and television writer whose career spanned more than forty years from the early forties well into the eighties. He is widely recognized as the writer of two of the most psychologically complex film noirs: Gilda (1946) and Night and the City (1950). His credits also include The Sleeping City (1950) and Crime of Passion (1957), a coda to the films of the noir style, for which he wrote the story as well as the screenplay. Starring Barbara Stanwyck, it is a strikingly modern commentary about how women were driven mad by the limitations imposed upon them in the postwar period. Jo Eisinger started writing for radio penning numerous segments for the Adventures of Sam Spade series. He returned to thriller and private eye adventure series writing for the ITC television series Danger Man (1960–61) and the mid-1980s HBO series Philip Marlowe, Private Eye. His script for an episode of the latter show, "The Pencil", earned him a 1984 Edgar Award. Eisinger's credits also include several films that departed from his accustomed genres of mystery, adventure and crime. Among them are Oscar Wilde (1960), starring Robert Morley and Sir Ralph Richardson, The Rover (L'Avventuriero, 1967), from the novel by Joseph Conrad and starring Rita Hayworth and Anthony Quinn, and The Jigsaw Man (1983), starring Laurence Olivier and directed by Terence Young. Eisinger wrote the books on which the Broadway plays What Big Ears! (1942) and A Point of Honor (1937) were based. His novel The Walls Came Tumbling Down (1943) was adapted for the long-running radio drama program Suspense in 1944; the episode featured screen and radio actors Keenan Wynn and Hans Conried. A film version of The Walls Came Tumbling Down starring Edgar Buchanan and George Macready was released in 1946. Jo Eisinger's second marriage was to Lorain Beaumont. Eisinger used his wife's maiden name for Mr. Beaumont, one of the characters in The Walls Came Tumbling Down. more…

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Submitted on August 05, 2018

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