i tried really hard to like this movie, as it was well shot and scripted, but i could not overlook how much the narration bothered me. everytime that i almost got enthralled by the story, the narrator would start to jokingly talk about the story which i was trying to take seriously and realistically. it really did single handedly ruin this movie for me. anyone else agree? i also did not care for the minor subplot of the detective, his wife and their son who had to be punished.
shareThe only part that bugged me was the, Have you seen this man?, part. He just kept saying it over and over again. I get that he was trying to show how repetitive the cop's job was but it still annoyed me. :)
I liked the movie though.
The narrator was Mark Hellinger. The producer of this film and the soul behind the whole enterprise. He knew what he was doing. The last line of the film (which was narrated) became THE classic line from this film and the later TV show it inspired (Hellinger died of a sudden herat attack at the movie's priemeire). "There are 8 million stories in the naked city, this has been one of them!"
sharei don't think it matters who the narrator was. not to offend the late hellinger but it really seemed out of place and served no real purpose to the stoory. sorry, but it did ruin it for me. that classic last line should not have been in the actual film, but maybe a tagline or something.
shareSome of the narration was redundant especially when he was augmenting the actual action we were watching by telling us what was happening or what the character was thinking. Didn't really add much. But much of it did reflect a NYC kind of attitude and perspective that Hellinger wanted to convey.
Compare this to the way Scorsese uses narration in his films. It gives him the freedom to jump around in time and space without losing the audience. Especially in Casino and Goodfellas.
"Mister- ever see a man looks like this?" !!
shareI loved the film but I agree with you that the narration was unnecessary and often irritating.
- No animal was hurt during the making of this burger -
I agree the narration was annoying as hell. Like, if I hadn't otherwise intended to see the movie I would have stopped sometime in the middle of the "this is not like any other movie you have seen" spiel. Come the !@#$ on, dude. A little self-aggrandizing. And also, so sorry, but he's a producer. Not a narrator.
The film was, head to toe, otherwise wonderful. I think simply taking scissors to the audio and cutting out the narration would work wonders. I think the scene setting shots would work fine, for example, without being told "the sun rises" and so forth.
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everytime that i almost got enthralled by the story, the narrator would start to jokingly talk about the story which i was trying to take seriously and realistically.
I think the problem lies with you, then, and not with the film. It wasn't meant to be taken as seriously as you were trying to take it; it may have been a serious story, but it was treated in a lighthearted manner. Most movies use narration to establish plot; this one used it to establish mood.
And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.
I completely agree with 5thHobbit on this. I found the narration to be a nice touch. It does help to establish the mood, or perhaps bring a broader perspective -- that of a street-savvy cop, or a Walter Winchell-like reporter (as in the TV show, The Untouchables).
Perhaps it's become a lost art, so modern audiences are no longer comfortable with it, but it used to be an almost indispensable device in many a film noir movie -- especially detective thrillers. I can't imagine Humphrey Bogart as Sam Spade without his witty and world-weary voiceovers, sharing his thoughts and observations with the audience. Or Fred MacMurray narrating throughout Double Indemnity in the form of a confession dictated to the company dictaphone.
Of course, it's not completely gone. Martin Scorcese does a great job with narration, in the films Casino, Goodfellas, and Taxi Driver (any others?). I especially like how Joe Pesci in Casino narrates his side of the story right up until the moment he gets whacked by a baseball bat and then buried alive. Nice touch.
The point is, narration, when done right, enhances the story, rather than detracts from it. For me, it definitely added to the story of Naked City.
he's such a smartass. does a ship, ever get tired?
“Can't go wrong with taupe."- Wynn Duffy
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The narration was horrible. Obviously, the producer was an egomaniac and wanted some attention for himself. He probably thought he was a great narrator, but he was sh!t! You're not alone, he definitely helped ruin the movie for me as well. But, on the whole, I can't say as I thought it was a very good movie, anyway. I much prefer a better film noir like "Double Indemnity"!
shareI liked it very much, especially lines like "Lady, you ever see a guy looks like this." The tone of voice and the light cynicism both contrasted and complemented Barry Fitzgerald andd reinforced the feeling that we were following the story in terms of a newspaper series of a crime investigation. together with the shots of New York, it created a very distinctive atmosphere which I enjoyed very much and which made a fairly routine story come to an engaging form of life.
shareYour first mistake is thinking that The Naked City is a film-noir. It isn't.
Too much of the action takes place during the day, the only character that would qualify as a femme-fatal dies in the first minute, and none of the leads are remotely "gritty" or 'hard-boiled".
The Naked City is the flip-side of the film-noir. The things that happens off camera in this film (the crimes and such) is the stuff of film-noir. Think of this film as a deconstruction of the film-noir style, the antithesis to it. If "Double Indemnity" or "The Big Sleep" is "black film" then "The Naked City" is white-film.
Yeah the narration, it´s somewhat patronizingly folksy tone and the it tendency to overexplain information the film had already passed on via dialogue & action, did sometimes distract. Also agree about the annoyingly wholesome domestic scenes at that tall detective´s house (the cop pairing´s kinda strange as well, in terms of acting, consisting of one old ham while the young guy´s so wooden it´s occasionally quite goofy).
"facts are stupid things" - Ronald Reagan
I just watched it on TCM. I think the narration was supposed to evoke a newspaper story. You were watching what was rallying happening, while the narrator was summing up. Hard to remember that news radio and TV were in their infancy, and that most news was transmitted through newspapers, with morning and evening editions. Back then, I think New York had 5 daily papers, maybe more, this movie was a few years before my time. There is a definate emphasis on the freshness of a story, the scene toward the end where the latest headline "Murder solved" is swept away as garbage as the news headlines are loaded onto trucks is telling. Its still that way, but with video. 30days later and Costa Concordia is....
shareThe narration didn't bother me and I think it made the film a little different.
I also like they included the city residents as almost a character. The subplot was to show the detective had a life away from the murder which included what residents of the city would encounter.
i found it to be unique myself. it was utilized well to move plot along and showcase the other main characters, the city itself and its inhabitants.
shareI love the narration.
It gives the film a very quaint feeling which distances it from the "films noir" which were being produced around the same time.
Also the narration, in conjunction with the cinematography, gives the film a very documentary feel, which seems to have been the point. I think it's a spectacular movie and the narration only adds to it.
Your first mistake is thinking that The Naked City is a film-noir. It isn't.
Too much of the action takes place during the day, the only character that would qualify as a femme-fatal dies in the first minute, and none of the leads are remotely "gritty" or 'hard-boiled".
The Naked City is the flip-side of the film-noir. The things that happens off camera in this film (the crimes and such) is the stuff of film-noir. Think of this film as a deconstruction of the film-noir style, the antithesis to it. If "Double Indemnity" or "The Big Sleep" is "black film" then "The Naked City" is white-film.
The femme-fatale dies in the first scene of the movie, that's the whole point. This is the film-noir style as viewed in a mirror.
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