MovieChat Forums > The Naked City (1948) Discussion > Heavy case load ?

Heavy case load ?

posted 12 years ago by thepartydjz
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I love this film, however I can't help ignoring the elephant in the room. Even in 1948 the NYPD must've had more than 1 case to keep track of, murder cases even. It seems that this case took over the entire office full time, and 6 (or 7) cops trailing Frank Niles as a suspect.

It just seems to me that this is unrealistic. I could imagine the same thing happening today in NY City and nothing ever being done about it. I thought at first the girl must've been some kind of celebrity, but nope, just an average citizen.

Even in the short office scenes when some new evidence comes in, 5 detectives all in one room just sitting there pondering this one case, one smoking a pipe, this can't represent reality, even in 1948.

I guess there would be no story without the constant scrutinizing of this case, however it's hard to believe it would ever happen unless it were an extremely high profile case, even in 1948.

[–] Mighty_Duck_4 12 years ago

You're thinking of the crazy homicide rates that NYC had from the 60's through the 90's which was due to drugs and gangs. The murder rate in NYC today is about the same as it was in the 40's. Which is only around 500 a year. Also there isn't one NYPD building that houses and handles all cases in the city. Each murder is handled by offices in the precinct where it occurred.

Most homicides in the city are in Brooklyn or the Bronx and handled by offices there. Manhattan has the second lowest rate in the city behind Staten Island. And most of those murders are on the northern half of the island in Harlem. Homicides are relatively rare south of Central Park, like Chelsea, where the film was set.

So it's not at all unbelievable that the 10th precinct (Chelsea and Clinton south) could dedicate a lot of men to a single homicide. As it's typical they'll only get one or two murders a year.

PS: This is what part of the alphabet would look like if Q and R didn't exist.