TaryBiggBall It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

BelSports This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Ariella Broughton It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

Cassandra Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

seymourblack-1 Charlton Heston plays an amoral hustler in this moody thriller which has a good plot, a talented cast and plenty of suspense. It's based on the story "No Escape" by Larry Marcus (who is also one of the screenwriters) and, as the title suggests, features a group of characters who find themselves in a life threatening situation, with no obvious way out. It's also a story of revenge in which a growing sense of tension is generated by the presence of an unhinged avenger who, as well as remaining unseen by his victims, very effectively, starts picking them off one by one.Danny Haley (Charlton Heston) is out of the building when his illegal bookmaking business gets raided by the cops and almost everyone present gets arrested. Due to a lack of hard evidence, however, no charges are brought against either, Danny or his associates, Barney (Ed Begley), Augie (Jack Webb) and Soldier (Henry Morgan). As the business has been raided repeatedly in recent months, despite the money that Danny had spent in pay-offs, it becomes impossible to carry on and everyone involved is left without any income. Unexpectedly, an opportunity to minimize their losses arises when Danny meets an out-of-town businessman in the local nightclub where his girlfriend Fran Garland (Lizabeth Scott) is the resident singer and notices that the friendly Arthur Winant (Don DeFore) has a $5,000 cashiers check in his possession.After Winant is lured into a rigged poker game, he gets ripped off so badly by Danny, Barney and Augie, that he loses all his money including the $5,000 which belonged to his employers and unable to come to terms with what he'd done, commits suicide in his hotel room by hanging himself. Danny and his gang immediately fear the possible repercussions and things quickly get worse when Barney is murdered and they learn that Winant's psychopathic and very over-protective brother, Sidney (Mike Mazurki) is out for revenge.Soldier, who was not involved in the card game decides to leave Chicago and goes to work in a Las Vegas casino that's run by one of his old friends and Danny and Augie go to Los Angeles where Danny poses as an insurance investigator and romances Winant's wife Victoria (Viveca Lindfors), in an effort to acquire a photograph of the maniac who's out to kill him. When it becomes clear that Victoria doesn't posses a photo of Sidney, Danny owns up to having deceived her and decides to head for Las Vegas where he's subsequently joined by Fran before some further surprising developments lead to his eventual confrontation with the fearsome Sidney.This movie provided a very young-looking Charlton Heston with his first Hollywood starring role and the character he plays is rather complex because he's a man who, after having been betrayed by his wife and his best friend whilst on military service in England, had become very disillusioned, cynical and embittered. This led to the kind of detachment and lack of empathy he shows when he fleeces Winant and cruelly deceives the recently bereaved Victoria. It's also the reason for the hardboiled attitude that he habitually displays and his inability to commit properly to his loyal girlfriend, Fran. Heston's portrayal of this rather unsympathetic character is incredibly assured and surprisingly subtle, especially considering his relative inexperience at the time when the film was made.Although the pace of the action is inconsistent and the level of suspense isn't fully exploited, "Dark City" is wonderfully atmospheric, well-acted and very enjoyable to watch throughout its entire 98 minutes.

calvinnme ... as this film that starts out rather slow becomes a Hitchcock-like game of cat and mouse across the country involving a psychopath bent on vengeance against a group of crooked gamblers that drove his brother to suicide after he lost money that belonged to his company in a card game. The psychopathic brother is hunting the gamblers down one by one and hanging them - which is the way his brother killed himself. Up to the end all you see of this guy is a big beefy hand with a large black ring on one finger. The gamblers that know they're targets don't even know that much about the appearance of the man out to get them. And this is their one hope - to find out what the guy looks like so they can at least have a chance.At first Charlton Heston may seem out of place here as a gray character at the center of a film noir, but he carries the role admirably. Dean Jagger is the police captain that introduces himself as head of vice but for some reason gets involved in first the suicide of the guy the gamblers took, and then in the murder cases of the gamblers. It's very strange though that he keeps dragging Heston's character downtown just to tell him he's doomed to die at the violent hands of the rampaging murderer - and then seems to do nothing about it other than to taunt him. You'll see several actors playing against their normal type here including Jack Webb as one of the gamblers that is at first a bully full of bravado turned to quivering coward as the killer closes in, and Harry Morgan as an ex-soldier turned simple by something that happened in WWII that is never explained.Only one thing is a bit annoying in this film - for some reason the makers of this film seem to think Lizabeth Scott's nightclub singing is some kind of treat for the audience. I found it distracting and found myself groaning every time she'd show up for another number.Another thing that's very interesting - five years after WWII ends much of the problems of the characters is laid at the feet of the destruction and upheaval of that war citing problems that must have been common in American society at that time - hastily made wartime marriages that went lukewarm after the war, men who went soft in the head as a result of being soldiers, men who went hard as a result of being soldiers. If you want to watch a highly effective little thriller I highly recommend this film.

herbqedi Heston does a marvelous job is in his first star turn. Jack Webb, Harry Morgan, and Ed Begley lend impeccable supporting work. Don De Fore is re-teamed with Lizabeth Scott for the first time since You Came Along. Scott (Dead Reckoning, Strange Love of Martha Ivers, I Walk Alone, Stolen Face) is one of my all-time favorite femme fatales. Dieterle's direction is fast-paced and interesting throughout. Unfortunately, the whole turns out to be less than the sum of its parts.The problem is in the inconsistent and unimaginative script. It's really a pedestrian tale of revenge with a miscast Mike Mazurki -- not a true film noir as it is normally billed. The parade of musical interludes is annoying. The chemistry between Scott and Heston doesn't work. And, the ending is a real letdown. Chalk this one up as a well-acted and well-directed misfire.

yarborough Being a huge "Dragnet" fan, I just had to see the two movies that Jack Webb appeared in with Harry Morgan before the two worked together in "Dragnet." "Dark City" is one of them and the other is "Appointment with Danger." Although "Dark City" was released in 1950, the year before "Appointment with Danger" was released, "Appointment with Danger" was actually filmed first (shot in the summer of 1949). "Dark City" was Jack Webb's final filmed feature before hitting the small screen with "Dragnet" in 1951. Truthfully, I was disappointed with this movie. It contains one of the thinnest plots I've ever seen, and it tries to convince the audience that Charlton Heston somehow doesn't deserve to die, but Jack Webb and Ed Begley do, even though all three of them took part in cheating the killer's brother out of money. Only Henry (Harry) Morgan really deserves to live because he didn't take part in the cheating. In the movie, Morgan even tells Heston "You're worse than the rest of them." The movie simply avoids that problem and we're supposed to feel happy for Heston when he survives. In addition, Heston's performance is somewhat flat (this is his first feature film), and the two romance situations (yes, both involving Heston) take away from the film noir feel this movie tries to have. Also, the torch songs that Lizabeth Scott sings aren't very powerful (though Lizabeth looks drop-dead gorgeous when she sings them). The best part of the movie is the colorful supporting cast (Webb, Morgan, and Begley). The bickering and joking that goes on among them is pretty funny (especially Webb's hole-in-one glass joke). Worth seeing for interest sake.