Lang newspaper thriller is part of Film Forum tribute
WHILE THE CITY SLEEPS (Fritz Lang, 1956)
Film Forum
209 West Houston St.
Tuesday, February 1, 1:30, 5:20, 9:10
Series continues through February 10
212-727-8110
www.filmforum.org
When media magnate Amos Kynes (Robert Warwick) dies, his son Walter (Vincent Price) takes over despite Amos’s greatest fears. Walter decides that whoever gets a scoop on the Lipstick Killer will become his number two man, so the backstabbing race is on among sleazy wire service chief Mark Loving (George Sanders); managing editor Jon Day Griffith (Thomas Mitchell), who’ll do just about anything for a story; and Harry Kritzer (James Craig), who thinks the best way to get the job is from the bed of Walter’s wife (Rhonda Fleming). Throw in cynical television journalist Ed Mobley (Dana Andrews) and hot-to-trot columnist Mildred Donner (Ida Lupino) and you have another one of Hollywood’s terrific newspaper pics. Director Fritz Lang pulls no punches; the film is filled with plenty of sexual undertones (and overtones), and Kynes himself is a take-off of Charles Foster Kane, the glistening K atop his New York City skyscraper reminiscent of the K atop Xanadu’s front gate. WHILE THE CITY SLEEPS is screening with Lang’s 1948 murder mystery SECRET BEYOND THE DOOR, starring Joan Bennett and Michael Redgrave, as part of Film Forum’s Fritz Lang in Hollywood series, which continues through February 10 with such other great twin bills as MINISTRY OF FEAR (1944) and MAN HUNT (1941) on February 4-5, CLASH BY NIGHT (1952) and RANCHO NOTORIOUS (1952) on February 6-7, and YOU ONLY LIVE ONCE (1937) and YOU AND ME (1938) on February 9-10.