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.

Ava-Grace Willis Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

Lachlan Coulson This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.

Fleur Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

jc-osms Not one of the great Fritz Lang's greatest, "While The City Sleeps" despite its great Film Noir title never really wakens itself up. It has its moments but with a confusing plot-line, some confused casting and acting to go with it, it was something of a disappointment to this long-term Lang fan.It starts well enough with the shocking murder of a young girl in her apartment, although too soon we're shown who the murderer is, a young Elvis lookalike and given the usual Freudian explanations - father left when he was young, mother wanted a girl instead of a boy - for his crimes. Hitchcock of course treated the subject of a mother-fixated psychopath just a bit better a few years later and I would doubt he learned much from his great contemporary's earlier take on the subject.Mixed in with this is a weird background story of three prominent newspaper staff members set against each other for the top job on the paper by a miscast Vincent Price as the heir to the paper's owner who conveniently dies barely minutes into the film. The late mogul's preferred choice to take over the reins is crusading Pulitzer Prize winning author and now occasional reporter and TV broadcaster, Dana Andrews, whose character appears more often drunk than sober and who has an unattractively off-hand way with his adoring girlfriend, at one point offering her as bait for the killer without even asking her. To be fair, this race to the top amongst the three contenders holds almost no viewer interest and only detracts from the main plot. Throw in Ida Lupino as an on-the-make female reporter, content to seduce Andrews at the behest of her equally miscast editor boss George Sanders, Rhonda Fleming as Price's philandering wife and Sally Forrest, with a trendy boy-ish hair cut as Andrews' too young now-she-loves-him, now-she-doesn't girlfriend and there really are too many cooks spoiling this particular pot-boiler.There are also several scenes which are just plain odd, like when Lupino's character attempts to beguile Andrews by using an old-fashioned, supposedly salacious spectrograph which turns out to contains an image of a swaddling baby or when Price, in a natty pair of shorts practises his putting while in conversation with his statuesque wife who is striking poses in her beach-wear. The film really had no attractive characters and the female characters in particular are poorly written. There is a noticeably adult approach to the filming of the loosely-termed love scenes (one especially where an adulterous conversation is played out with a bed prominently in the background) and the final attack on Price's wife is noticeably realistic, but this film lacks the imaginative flair of director Lang's best work and ranks as one of his few failures in my book.

GManfred Maybe I was expecting too much from this picture. It's billed as a film noir, but I thought the mood was all wrong for a film noir. More like a melodrama bordering on a drama but for the presence of John Barrymore, Jr. It had a great cast with lots off recognizable names and the director was Fritz Lang.I just thought it wasn't up to the lofty standard set by Lang in earlier films like 'M" and "The Testament Of Dr. Mabuse", but truth be told, these pictures were made many years before this one. Too much dialogue here, and this picture dearly needed an injection of excitement to break the tedium of the love stories in the sub-plot.I like Dana Andrews, Thomas Mitchell, George Sanders, et al. A big boost was provided by Ida Lupino, always professional, as a sleep-around newspaper columnist. I also felt Barrymore tended toward ham in his portrayal of the psycho killer. My overall impression is of a master director who was losing his fastball, which is a shame. It could have been so much better.

Rich Page A decent film featuring an under-used cast of great actors. The standouts are: Ida Lupino, who excels in the role of a cynical but good-natured predator -- she owns roles like this, and practically walks off with the film; and Vincent Price, who's convincingly smug and naive -- he's not a bad guy, just lazy and clueless. Dana Andrews is fine, but he's done better work and could have used more of an edge. He's too nice here -- why does he drink so much? Why has he given up on his career? Why does he suddenly care about the murders in this film? Why doesn't he fall for Lupino, who's more his type? Thomas Mitchell manages to dig out of the script whatever he can put to use, especially when he grapples with the tension between ethics and ambition; Mitchell is always a step better (at least) than the material he's given, and that's no exception here. George Sanders seems to be on cruise control for most of the film, but doesn't do any harm. Rhonda Fleming is fine and voluptuously convincing, but Howard Duff is vague and Sally Forrest and Larry Craig are in over their heads -- there are too many great actors in this cast for them to even hold their own.There are three culprits. First, Lang's pace is sluggish and he seems uncomfortable with a wider screen. His camera should be giving us more of these characters, especially in close- up. Second, the script is frequently preposterous and short on character development -- it's not clear why most of these characters do what they do, and a few more lines of dialogue would have served everybody well. Finally, John Barrymore Jr. is frankly awful. His "look at me, I'm nuts" performance is mostly embarrassing, especially once you've seen actors like Robert Walker nail the concept more subtly and deftly.All that said, this is worth a look. There are terrific performances here, and an honest attempt to understand the relationship between ethics and business competition.

seymourblack-1 "While The City Sleeps" is a well written and fast moving story about a power struggle that develops in a media organisation following the death of its well respected proprietor. Murder, romance and bitter rivalries feature strongly and the presence of a devious group of characters played by an all star cast ensures that the level of intrigue remains high throughout.After having read a report of the murder of a young woman who had been strangled, media mogul Amos Kyne (Robert Warwick) instructs his top executives to make the story into front page news and as the the killer had written the words "Ask Mother" in lipstick on a wall in his victim's apartment, Kyne adds that the murderer should be referred to as "The Lipstick Killer".Shortly after issuing these instructions, Kyne dies and his playboy son, Walter (Vincent Price) inherits the business. As he has no idea how to run a media empire, Walter decides that he'll create a new senior executive post so that the incumbent can effectively manage the business for him. The three candidates for the job are John Day (Thomas Mitchell), the editor of the "New York Sentinel", Mark Loving (George Sanders) who's in charge of the wire service and chief photographer Harry Kritzer (James Craig). Walter makes it clear that whichever man is able to provide a scoop by exposing the identity of "The Lipstick Killer" will be given the top job.In the past, Amos had made it clear that he would have liked Ed Mobley (Dana Andrews) to be his successor but the Pulitzer Prize winning ex-reporter who had moved on to become an author and news commentator on the Kyne TV channel had made it known that he was not interested in seeking more power. By contrast, Griffith and Loving have no such reservations and quickly go into competition with each other. Ktitzer, on the other hand is having an affair with Walter's wife Dorothy (Rhonda Fleming) and plans to use her to achieve his ambition. She though, is also power hungry and tells Harry that if he's successful as a result of her influence, she'll be pulling the strings.Despite his reluctance to get involved in the power struggle, Mobley agrees to Griffith's request to help him and Loving conscripts the assistance of his mistress Mildred Donner (Ida Lupino) who's also a columnist on Kyne's newspaper.Following the murder which had attracted Amos Kyne's attention, "The Lipstick Killer" had gone on to commit other murders and Mobley uses his friendship with the police detective who's working on the case to get the inside track on how the investigation is progressing. Together with Lieutenant Burt Kaufman (Howard Duff), Mobley then devises a plan to provoke the murderer into actions which will lead to his early arrest and a variety of further complications follow before the races for the top job and the arrest of the serial killer are finally concluded.This movie makes some interesting observations about the roles that the media can play in the context of high profile crimes. Initially, "The Lipstick Killer" story is given a high level of prominence because of its sensational nature and its potential for selling newspapers but it's then also used as an important component in the competition for a top job in the industry. The view is expressed that comic books encourage gullible readers into criminal acts and Lieutenent Kaufman also bemoans the fact that too much information about police methods is published in newspapers etc and this makes it much harder for law enforcement officers to keep one step ahead of the criminals. Television is also used by Mobley to make an important direct address to the serial killer.The competition between the Kyne executives soon makes them ruthless and unprincipled and their methods become increasingly corrupt and unsavoury and even Mobley who had originally appeared to have higher standards, proves to be a heavy drinker who has no qualms about setting up his own fiancée, to be a target for the serial killer. His principles also seem to dessert him when Loving sends Mildred to seduce him."While The City Sleeps" is intelligent and engrossing and the various strands of its rather involved plot are expertly brought together to produce an entertaining movie which really deserves more credit that it has previously been given.