While the City Sleeps

1956
Approved
1h 40m

IMDb RATING

6.9/10

7.4K

YOUR RATING

Sally Forrest in While the City Sleeps (1956)

A serial killer has been killing beautiful women in New York and the new owner of a media company offers a high ranking job to the first of his senior executives who can get the earliest scoops on the case.

Play trailer2:28

1 Video

85 Photos

Film Noir True Crime Crime Drama Thriller

A serial killer has been killing beautiful women in New York City and the new owner of a media company offers a high position in the company to the first of his senior executives who can get... Read allA serial killer has been killing beautiful women in New York City and the new owner of a media company offers a high position in the company to the first of his senior executives who can get the earliest scoop on the case.A serial killer has been killing beautiful women in New York City and the new owner of a media company offers a high position in the company to the first of his senior executives who can get the earliest scoop on the case.

Director
- Fritz Lang
Writers
- Casey Robinson
- Charles Einstein
Stars

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

6.9/10

7.4K

YOUR RATING

Director
- Fritz Lang
Writers
- Casey Robinson
- Charles Einstein
Stars

See production info at IMDbPro

Videos1

Trailer 2:28

Official Trailer

Photos85

+ 78

More like this

6.9

Beyond a Reasonable Doubt

6.5

Walk Softly, Stranger

6.9

High Wall

5.2

Person, Place or Thing

6.3

Baggage

6.5

The Weakest Link

8.3

Have You Been Paying Attention?

6.5

7.1

7.1

7.8

7.2

Storyline

Edit

Did you know

Edit

Trivia
The movie was adapted from a novel; The Bloody Spur by Charles Einstein (1953) which was based on a real murder case that took place in 1946. In that year, William Heirens killed three women and left a message scrawled in lipstick on a bathroom mirror after the second murder. In the message, he urged the police to catch him before he killed again. Because of this, the press dubbed him "The Lipstick Killer".

Goofs
When Robert Manners (John Drew Barrymore, as John Barrymore Jr.) is watching Edward Mobley (Dana Andrews) on TV, he is clutching a copy of "Tales From The Crypt". When he drops it to the floor, a closeup of the comic book now shows it to be titled "The Strangler".

Quotes
Ed Mobely: You know, you have very nice legs.
Nancy Liggett: Aren't you sweet.
Ed Mobely: Nice stockings too. What holds your stockings up?
Nancy Liggett: There's a lot your mother should have told you.
Ed Mobely: I didn't ask my mother. I asked you.

Connections
Featured in Histoire(s) du cinéma: Toutes les histoires (1989)

User reviews90

Review

Featured review

Not As Good As Advertised

Maybe I was expecting too much from this picture. It's billed as a film noir, but I thought the mood was all wrong for a film noir. More like a melodrama bordering on a drama but for the presence of John Barrymore, Jr. It had a great cast with lots off recognizable names and the director was Fritz Lang.

I just thought it wasn't up to the lofty standard set by Lang in earlier films like 'M" and "The Testament Of Dr. Mabuse", but truth be told, these pictures were made many years before this one. Too much dialogue here, and this picture dearly needed an injection of excitement to break the tedium of the love stories in the sub-plot.

I like Dana Andrews, Thomas Mitchell, George Sanders, et al. A big boost was provided by Ida Lupino, always professional, as a sleep-around newspaper columnist. I also felt Barrymore tended toward ham in his portrayal of the psycho killer. My overall impression is of a master director who was losing his fastball, which is a shame. It could have been so much better.

5/10 - Website no longer prints my star rating.