Linbeymusol Wonderful character development!

ChicRawIdol A brilliant film that helped define a genre

Merolliv I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

Kamila Bell 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.

Leofwine_draca PORT OF NEW YORK is a low budget crime thriller of 1949 in which a couple of narcotics agents go up against a criminal organisation smuggling drugs in through the New York docks. As a film it's very much par for the course and a product of its era, mostly a police procedural with a few scenes of interest here and there. There's a large cast but the characters tend to be underwritten so it's difficult to care about whether the heroes live or die; this is the kind of genre that would reach its peak some 20 to 30 years later in the films made by Roy Scheider and his contemporaries. Chiefly of interest is the casting of a youthful Yul Brynner - with hair! - as the bad guy, supported by a debuting Neville Brand as a snarling henchman.

Alex da Silva Yul Brynner (Paul) heads up a drug gang in New York that includes heavies William Challee (Leo) and Neville Brand (Ike). Scott Brady (Mickey) and Richard Rober (Jim) are on his case. Richard Rober should have been cast above Scott Brady, and trust a woman, Lynne Carter (Lili) to mess everything up at the end, eh! The film starts in that documentary style with a voice-over. It goes on a bit too much and the film gets bogged down and a bit slow with the arrival of entertainer Arthur Blake (Dolly). I lost track of what was going on for a while and then found myself watching people in the dark running about and fighting each other - whoa....what's going on? Who's who? I'm afraid that was the result of my mind wandering because the film got a bit boring.Anyway, Yul Brynner is the standout in the cast but it all seems to be quite a predictable story with a climax that could have been better. It seems as if some tension is building towards the end of the film, and then it's all over in a sudden. It's not a bad film, but neither is it particularly good.

Corr28 Had a chance to sit down and watch PORT OF NEW YORK some time ago and I have to say that this is a terrific little noir/crime/thriller! Told in "documentary style" as in such films as HOUSE ON 92ND STREET, THE NAKED CITY and HE WALKED BY NIGHT, the movie is swiftly paced, violent with a decent amount of suspense and plenty of fisticuffs. Scott Brady and Richard Rober play a couple of federal agents, one a customs agent and the other a treasury agent out to stop the distribution of illegal "contraband", i.e., opium, that came in on a ship but was smuggled off by drug dealers. The leader of the drug operation is Yul Brynner, sporting a head of dark, wavy hair and appearing in his first film role I believe. Brynner is suave and refined and listens to avant-garde piano music but it is clear that he is also quite cold and violent as the bodies start to pile up. Plenty of action to keep one interested and wonderful direction from Laslo Benedek. The real star though is cinematographer George E. Diskant. Filmed entirely on location in New York City, the film bursts to life with magnificent images of the Big Apple and some truly wonderful shots of the NYC maritime scene. This is a rather obscure, "B" noir/crime film that was a pleasant surprise and a movie that all fans of the genre should check out.

vitaleralphlouis This fine crime drama shows the work Federal agents in Customs, Narcotics and the Coast Guard did to fight the drug trade in 1949's New York City. This is known as Yul Brynner's first movie, but the real star is Scott Brady.With 59 years having past, I found this movie an unintended heartbreak. Young people might not believe this but in 1949 the narcotics trade was limited to small areas of New York, Chicago and Los Angeles --- not all 50 states, not every town in America. The Federal agents portrayed in this movie might have just cried if they could have seen 14 years into the future when narcotics swept across the USA like a hurricane and infected our lives, our streets, our schools.All this was done with the Federal government opening the door wide. When LBJ appointed crime-friendly Ramsey Clark as Attorney-General and appointed crime-friendly judges to the Supreme Court, this and other corrosive steps were applauded by Newsweek, Time, CBS and others. New York City lost 20% of its population and literally went bankrupt in the late '70's --- primarily because of unchecked crime. The 1966 movie "Death Wish" portrays this era well. This was your parents and grandparents era. It could not have happened without them. When you have time, search for their stash and tell them off.