Beystiman
It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.
CrawlerChunky
In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.
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.
ChampDavSlim
The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.
jdeureka
Within New York City's Bellevue Hospital in post-World War Two America there is a drug racket, the interns are supplying "the white stuff" -- heroin -- to an intermediary who's selling it illegally, with the help of the head nurse. The interns get suckered into the racket but the head nurse and the bad guy villain do it for the dough. Great dialogue. Superbly dark setting. Fine, competent acting with a semi-documentary feel to their simple, profound human weaknesses and strengths. All of which is caped by the physical-psychological setting. The hospital is where patients are asleep with their illness and the weak may be manipulated by the strong. Or is it America itself which is "the sleeping city"? "The Sleeping City" is film as a visionary reading of the corruptions inherent both in a medical system where people are overworked and underpaid, stressed to their breaking point and hence easily manipulated -- and where the single, myopic solution for all problems is money. Almost.For into this mix comes Detective Fred Rowan, aka Richard Conte, in an under cover sting operation. Conte acts his grim, good-Judas role beautifully, tough as a slowly sniffing, plodding bull; secretive as a spider. In the end, Rowan's/Conte's tactics solve the immediate problem. Not without irony. For this story wisely offers no long-term strategy to the sleeping sickness of corruption at work in the vast hospital complex and in America's medical system. Good men and women, ordinary folk, are lost in a vast concrete moral maze. The world is far more grey than black and white. People die but are not redeemed. Doctors are lost and not replaced. All of society suffers, although a few of the guilty are punished.Finally, the dialogue is superb. With give and take like: (-) "How is he doc?" (+) "Breathing from memory." And "Don't ever argue with a cop, son. Just answer his questions." And the ending rises out on a beautiful, urban long shot, dark and double-edged as a pleasing sunset with no rain, peace without quiet, and reminiscent of the city finalés of King Vidor's "The Crowd "(1928), Mike Nichols' "Working Girl" (1988) and other films which use the city setting for perfect enhancement of trenchant storytelling.
RE D
Very interesting plot, not just the same old, same old. It is unfortunate that this film is not more readily available. The story line is different from any other film I have seen. The story is developed and unpredictable. The cast and acting throughout leave nothing to be desired. Acting and camera use is wonderful and the characters are well developed. I would not consider this a boring film by any stretch of the imagination. The Sleeping City is a great example of a classic film noir. I would not have been able to view this film if it wasn't for a store I found online that sells a DVD copy of it, if you look around you should be able to find it. Hope more people can enjoy this great work too!
RanchoTuVu
A detective (Richard Conte) goes undercover, posing as an intern at New York's Bellevue Hospital, in order to solve the murder of another intern. What he discovers is a rather sophisticated operation of gambling and drug dealing. Desperate interns, a seductive and crooked ward nurse played by Colleen Grey, and a rather demented hospital maintenance man (Pops) played by Richard Tabor, together call into question the very integrity of the famous hospital. Conte works his way through to solve the murder and to learn the circumstances around it in some unusual film noir settings amidst darkened hospital wards and empty hallways.
jsmarr4
I saw this movie once, many years ago, in NYC. It was filmed on location at Bellevue Hospital, eighty blocks south from where I did my residency training in medicine (50's-60's.) The medical attire, locations, and medical palaver are certainly dated, but that was the way it was ... many years ago. The movie's characters (Conte et al.) were grand; an atherosclerotic, aging, Bellevue Hospital was really like that, the state-of-the-art treatments, the accomodations for patients were all shockingly interesting. In this sense, it is living history of a past medical era.The Noir is also so nicely done: hospital corridors, primitive art deco elevators, and night shots of Gotham streets. (All these retro-images are based on a film once seen by me forty years ago!)If film renovators/DVD entreprenuers were to read this clip, I would recommend they consider this movie as one that many forgotten Noirs that need to be resurrected. It would be a cryptogenic discovery. Conte was a great actor, and he has a loyal following. (This movie was in his early career, and he plays a good guy!) He would be lauded later for his Godfather roles.)
