Robert Warwick appears and then dies at the beginning of While The City Sleeps. He's a Rupert Murdoch type media tycoon and he's left his empire to his rather unsteady son Vincent Price. Price is second generation wealth and looking to put his personal stamp on the empire bequeathed to him. But he'll need someone who really knows the business and three candidates present themselves, Thomas Mitchell, George Sanders, and James Craig. All of them use fair and foul means to gain the prize. Craig's is the foulest of all, he's carrying on with Price's tramp of a wife in Rhonda Fleming hoping the two of them will influence Price.
We've got a couple of other players in this field also. Dana Andrews sides with Mitchell who edits the local tabloid similar to the Murdoch run New York Post. Andrews has won Pulitzer Prizes the two of them decide to aid the police in capturing a serial killer before that term came into use who is targeting young women. Andrews baits the killer in his nightly newscast and also happens to mention he's just gotten engaged to Sally Forrest who works as George Sanders's secretary in the wire service portion of the empire. In a really slick piece of casting against type Sanders while having a more or less undefined role, comes off as the most sympathetic character of the lot.
Andrews ostensibly the hero is a real creep for using his girl friend Forrest as bait even with the connivance of his friend Detective Howard Duff in charge of the investigation. It nearly goes wrong.
John Drew Barrymore who had an odd career being the holder of that great name of the theater. In 1956 people had memories of his father and probably expected a classical actor in that vein. Instead Barrymore had he not had that name might have found himself a niche in Hollywood with the newer post war rebel types like James Dean or Marlon Brando. This film is one of his best performances as the woman hating, mother fixated serial killer in a career that quite frankly featured a lot of junk.
In the few scenes she's in, but stealing every one of them is Ida Lupino as an acid tongued gossip columnist in the Hedda Hopper tradition. She in her way gets the final say on who becomes top dog.
While The City Sleeps is one of the most cynical and jaded films ever to come out of Hollywood. Fritz Lang mixed a really great cast together with a great script and got quite an indictment of the news business, predating Network by 20 years. His happy ending for Andrews and Forrest didn't ring true, but other than that a great piece of work.
We've got a couple of other players in this field also. Dana Andrews sides with Mitchell who edits the local tabloid similar to the Murdoch run New York Post. Andrews has won Pulitzer Prizes the two of them decide to aid the police in capturing a serial killer before that term came into use who is targeting young women. Andrews baits the killer in his nightly newscast and also happens to mention he's just gotten engaged to Sally Forrest who works as George Sanders's secretary in the wire service portion of the empire. In a really slick piece of casting against type Sanders while having a more or less undefined role, comes off as the most sympathetic character of the lot.
Andrews ostensibly the hero is a real creep for using his girl friend Forrest as bait even with the connivance of his friend Detective Howard Duff in charge of the investigation. It nearly goes wrong.
John Drew Barrymore who had an odd career being the holder of that great name of the theater. In 1956 people had memories of his father and probably expected a classical actor in that vein. Instead Barrymore had he not had that name might have found himself a niche in Hollywood with the newer post war rebel types like James Dean or Marlon Brando. This film is one of his best performances as the woman hating, mother fixated serial killer in a career that quite frankly featured a lot of junk.
In the few scenes she's in, but stealing every one of them is Ida Lupino as an acid tongued gossip columnist in the Hedda Hopper tradition. She in her way gets the final say on who becomes top dog.
While The City Sleeps is one of the most cynical and jaded films ever to come out of Hollywood. Fritz Lang mixed a really great cast together with a great script and got quite an indictment of the news business, predating Network by 20 years. His happy ending for Andrews and Forrest didn't ring true, but other than that a great piece of work.