MovieChat Forums > While the City Sleeps (1956) Discussion > Worst Special Effect

Worst Special Effect

posted 15 years ago by bbmaps
2 replies | jump to latest

Some of this movie is respectable, but the LA Streetcar tunnel looks absolutely nothing like the real New York subway, and the movie goes out of its way to show that They show passengers boarding cars with steps and run around in tunnels with no third rail, for just a couple of things.

But the worst special effect in the movie is in the fight scene. They fight on the right side of the tracks as the streetcars go by, then on the left. Bad guy hits the reporter good guy who falls across the tracks and rolls off just in time. By if you pay the slightest attention, it is obvious that the streetcar is standing still as the good guy falls across the tracks and rolls off to the right, then they use a cheesy flashing light effect with a sound effect to pretend the train is actually going past. It would have been a crude effect even in the 1920s, and isn't very convincing here.

[–] chipe 11 years ago

Small point maybe, but when the cops grabbed the guy coming out of the subway, you never saw his face. For quite a while I thought they grabbed a different guy.

[–] Jes' Sayin' (6437) a year ago

Another problem is when they cross the tracks just in front of an oncoming train. It's clear that they superimposed the train over the figures because for a moment you can see one of them and the train in the exact same place.