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Nitrate Treasures: Night and the City

December 16, 2017 - 7:30 pm

News of the Day  (11/15/1950)

Vol. 22, No. 221

Robert A. Taft is re-elected to the Senate; revolutionaries are rounded up in Puerto Rico; the Russian Foreign Minister helps celebrates 33rd anniversary of the Communist revolution; and Joe DiMaggio visits Japan.

35mm, b/w, 7 min.

Teacher's Pest  (1950)

Nitrate print!

A young owl on the way to his first day of kindergarten runs across a hungry wolf who eager to teach the lad some culinary lessons.

35mm nitrate, IB Technicolor, 7 min.  Paramount Pictures. Directed by Izzy Sparber. Screenplay: Isadore Klein. With: Mae Questel, Sid Raymond, Cecil Roy. Music: Winston Sharples.

 

Night and the City  (1950)

Nitrate print!

Jules Dassin’s essential film noir opens with Harry Fabian, an expat, small-time American hustler, on the run through darkened London streets. In a real sense, Fabian, played by Richard Widmark with doom behind his eyes, never stops, lurching from one scam to the next, betting each new betrayal will get him out of the last. Director Jules Dassin uses London’s Blitz-scarred cityscape to accentuate the film’s fatalism.

The Archive's nitrate print of Night and The City is of the British release version of the film which runs six minutes longer than the U.S. release and features alternate opening and closing scenes as well as a different score by composer Benjamin Frankel.

35mm nitrate, b/w, 96 min. Production/Distribution: Twentieth Century Productions, Ltd. Director: Jules Dassin. Producer: Samuel G. Engel. Based on the novel by Gerald Kersh. Screenwriter: Jo Eisinger. Cinematographer: Max Greene. Editor: Sidney Stone. Cast: Richard Widmark, Gene Tierney, Googie Withers, Hugh Marlowe, Francis L. Sullivan.