Night and the City (1950)

A slow boiler of a noir -- while it gets off to a rough start, the film slowly ratches up the tension until the climax, where the sweat on Richard Widmark's brow practically rolls off the screen. The whole fun in this is seeing how Widmark's small-time hustler can keep his wits about him even as his situation grows more dire, and to the film's credit it's willing to follow that line all the way down. (Widmark's last lines are clever in the extreme.) It's always tough to steal scenes away from the electric Widmark, but among the gallery of grotesques that comprise the supporting cast, Francis L. Sullivan holds his own as a sarcastic club owner who is more dangerous than he looks.

Grade: B+