Night and the City
Two-bit hustler Harry Fabian (Richard Widmark) longs for "a life of ease and plenty." Trailed by an inglorious history of go-nowhere schemes, he tries to hatch a lucrative plan with a famous wrestler. But there is no easy money in this underworld of shifting alliances, bottomless graft, and pummeled flesh—and Fabian soon learns the horrible price of his ambition. Luminously shot in the streets of London while Hollywood blacklisters back home were closing in on director Jules Dassin, Night and the City, also starring Gene Tierney, is film noir of the first order, and one of Dassin's crowning achievements.
Spine #274
New 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
Complete 101-minute British version of the film
Audio commentary from 2005 with film scholar Glenn Erickson
Interview with director Jules Dassin from 2005
Excerpts from a 1972 television interview with Dassin
Comparison of the scores for the British and American versions of the film by historian Christopher Husted
PLUS: An essay by critic Paul Arthur
New cover by Owen Smith
Blu-Ray 1 Disc $31.96 SRP: $39.95
DVD 2 Discs $23.96 SRP: $29.95
Harry Fabian
Gene Tierney
Mary Bristol
Googie Withers
Helen Nosseross
Hugh Marlowe
Adam Dunn
Francis L. Sullivan
Philip Nosseross
Kristo
Stanislaus Zbyszko
Mike Mazurki
The Strangler
Charles Farrell
Mickey Beer
Jo Eisenger
From the novel by
Gerald Kersh
Franz Waxman
Max Greene
C. P. Norman
Odd Man Out
Pickup on South Street
Rififi
Night and the City: In the Labyrinth
On film noir's unparalleled roster of resonant titles—Kiss of Death, Out of the Past, and Where Danger Lives, to name three—none is more emblematic or iconographically cogent than Night and the City. Juxtaposing two of noir's essential, virtu…
By Paul Arthur
Essays — Aug 3, 2015
Dark Passages
Tough and Not-So-Tough Guys
What defines noir acting? In her latest Dark Passages column, Imogen Sara Smith examines the stylistic variety in some of the genre's most iconic male performances, including Burt Lancaster in The Killers and Ralph Meeker in Kiss Me Deadly.
By Imogen Sara Smith
Features — Apr 3, 2017
Jules Dassin on Night and the City
Night and the City was made in 1950, under circumstances almost as tense as those in the film. Knowing he was about to be blacklisted during the Communist witch hunts of the McCarthy era, director Jules Dassin fled to London, where he briskly made th…
Short Takes — Aug 5, 2015
Night and the City and the Guardian
Guardian film editor Andrew Pulver, the author of the BFI Film Classics monograph on Jules Dassin's Night and the City, has distilled his appreciation of the film into a column for the paper. "It's the title that gets you first�…
Short Takes — Dec 16, 2010
Ricky Jay's Top 10
Author, actor, and historian Ricky Jay first worked with director David Mamet on House of Games. They have since collaborated often, including on seven films, the TV show The Unit, the one-man Broadway show Ricky Jay and His 52 Assistants, and Redbel
Dennis Lehane's Top 10
Dennis Lehane is best known for his novel Mystic River, made into the acclaimed film by Clint Eastwood. When we discovered his love for Criterion, we asked him to write for us, and he did, contributing a terrific essay to our rerelease of The Wages o
Bruce Goldstein's Top 10
Recipient of a special New York Film Critics Circle award for visionary programming, Bruce Goldstein is the Repertory Program Director of New York's Film Forum, for which he has created more than 350 film festivals and spearheaded the rereleases of