The Naked Street (1955)
Directed by Maxwell Shane

Film Review

The Naked Street is another competently realised film noir from writer-director Maxwell Shane but it suffers from an unimaginative plot that is peppered with over-worn clichés and scarcely credible.  It's strange that the film's weakest element should be its script, since Shane was far more experienced as a screenwriter than a director, with well over fifty screen credits to his name.  Were it not for the solid contributions from the three principals, the film would be hard to take seriously, just a lazy concoction of plot ideas lifted from other crime movies.  Shane's mise-en-scène is hardly inspired, but helped along by Floyd Crosby's heavily atmospheric noir cinematography, it has a slick, gritty edge to it that makes it a fairly realistic entry in the gangster line.

Cast somewhat against type, Farley Granger is surprisingly convincing as an example of thuggish criminal lowlife who is what he is mostly through environmental factors rather than any inherent propensity for evil.  Granger is clearly intended to epitomise the neglected youth of a failed social system, someone who might have turned out well if he had had a better chance in life.  As Granger himself observed (he personally loathed the film), The Naked Street is painfully unsubtle in its observations, resorting to trite archetypes to make a social critique which would be handled far more intelligently in the American gangster films of a later era (from the 1970s onwards).

A forerunner of the mob bosses in these later films (you can't help wondering if it influenced Robert De Niro's gangster portrayals), Anthony Quinn's unforgiving Phil Regal anchors the film in its sordid, blood-stained reality and shows us what gangsterism is - ugly, brutal and treacherous.  Anne Bancroft shines in an early role, just before she became a Broadway diva, although it takes some stretch of the imagination to accept her as Quinn's demure sister.  Let down by its complacent script and preachy tone, The Naked Street falls short of excellence but the performances from the three leads are nothing less than compelling and amply make up for its shortcomings.  The result is a grimly absorbing encounter with urban gangsterism that is uncomfortably stark and bloody for its time.

Film Synopsis

Phil Regal is one of New York's most notorious racketeers, but so far he has evaded the law and passes himself off as a respectable businessman.  When he learns that his sister Rosalie is pregnant and that the unborn child's father is Nicky Bradna, a young man due to be executed for murder in a short while, Phil moves fast to safeguard his family's honour and ensure his sister's future happiness.  By forcing the witnesses who testified against Nicky to retract their statements, Regal is able to overturn Nicky's conviction.  Nicky may have been spared the electric chair, but he is by no means a free man.  Pressurised by Regal, he must marry Rosalie and start earning an honest living.  Rosalie's pregnancy ends in a still birth, causing a rift between Regal and Nicky which results in the latter going off with other woman whilst getting involved with petty criminal exploits.  When Regal hears of this he frames Nicky for another man's murder.  Nicky's only hope is to confess to the first murder...