Dark City (1950) Charlton Heston Poker Cheating Leads To Man Monster Murder!

This review is for Dark City (1950). A crime film noir thriller centered around gambling and monster murder?

What’s going down?

Danny Haley runs a small illegal gambling joint. Even with paying for police protection with backhanders the venue still gets raided. Down and out Danny and his business associates are ready to throw in the towel, just as the happy-go-lucky WW2 veteran Arthur strolls in. An out of town sucker way too nice to see through these despicable grifters. He wins, of course! The trap is set, the mark is played. As the night draws in and after the smoke filled room and stink of booze has cleared, some troubling news travels to Danny. The swinging of a hangman’s noose! Death will come in the shadows, death that starts to hunt them down. Vengeance with giant squeezing hulk hands.

The main players

Charlton Heston is Danny Haley
Lizabeth Scott is Fran Garland
Dean Jagger is Capt Garvey
Don DeFore is Arthur Winant
Jack Webb is Augie
Ed Begley is Barney
Harry Morgan is Soldier
Viveca Lindfors is Victoria Winant
Mike Mazurki as Sidney Winant

Tagline – A tense, tough drama of underworld violence and revenge! 

Sure I’ve seen them in something?

Ok, he may of played a few small characters like Ben Hur (1959) and Moses in The Ten Commandments (1956) hehe but Charlton Heston is always gonna be one of the king’s of science fiction with me. That super trio of big sci-fi classics. None more so than, of course, Planet Of The Apes (1968). The other two would be, Soylent Green (1973) and The Omega Man (1971). Shockingly I haven’t reviewed them yet! I do have two other Charlton’s reviewed if you are interested, Touch of Evil (1958) Orson Welles & 10 Things That Blew Me Away! and The Naked Jungle (1954) Charlton Hates Ants And Sloppy Seconds!

Lizabeth Scott is no stranger to film noir. She got a few great thrillers under her belt. One with Humphrey Bogart called Dead Reckoning (1947) and a top tough Andre De Toth movie called Pitfall (1948) alongside Dick Powell and she received top billing on Too Late For Tears (1949) to name just three films.

Ok you don’t see too much of him but man mountain Mike Mazurki has a real unique presence about him. Hulking in at 6ft 5″ with his rough and craggy face. He’d find himself being cast as gangster muscle, a hit-man or some mindless brute or bully. A few of the films I’ve seen him in are Murder, My Sweet (1944), Nightmare Alley (1947) and the brilliant Night and the City (1950) Plus of course, the classic, Some Like It Hot (1959). He did get to become a leading man in a family adventure called Challenge To Be Free (1975) It sounds like an early take on the trapper on the run in the snow that Charles Bronson would do in the superb Death Hunt (1981). Which, by the way, was one of my very first reviews on this here movie blog. Bronson, Marvin and Apollo Creed Freeze Their Nuts Off! Hit me up with your menacing Mike Mazurki recommendations.

Notes on production?

Directed by German film legend William Dieterle who went film nuts during the 30’s and made over fourty films! One of which would be the classic Victor Hugo adaptation of The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939) starring Charles Laughton and Maureen O’Hara. William Dieterle was also an actor with many productions under his name. One big 1920’s one was the fantasy horror film, Faust (1926).

Dark City’s story is based on a tale by Larry Marcus called No Escape! The movie would be produced by big time Hal B. Wallis. So many films he’d get his name on, like… The Maltese Falcon (1941), Casablanca (1942) Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957) True Grit (1969)

Hits like a sledge hammer

The realisation of what their dire actions have led to hits pretty hard.

Random Observation

There’s a nice little scene with Lizabeth Scott singing “That Old Black Magic” It’s a sweet scene as you see the heartfelt love she has for Danny. Yet, the stupid doofus is too wrapped up in his depressing cloud of dark blue doom to even realise. Lizabeth Scott is dubbed by Trudy Stevens who I read also dubbed the singing voices of Rosemary Clooney and Vera-Ellen in 1954 seasonal Bing Crosby classic, White Christmas.

A Few Choice Lines

Danny Haley – “Are we under arrest?“
Captain Garvey – “No, guys like you seldom get arrested… You get killed first.“

Danny Haley – “Playing cards with you two is like washing your feet with your socks on.“

Verdict

The real novelty here is to see Charlton Heston in his first meaty role. To witness whether you can see the flicker beginnings of that Charlton spark ready to burn brighter for much bigger things. Seeing him here, in a noir setting, also had me excited. I hadn’t heard of Dark City before and that title is perfect for a 50s noir-esque thriller with a seedy underbelly. He certainly looked the part with his tall and handsome good looks. I wasn’t so convinced he had the chops to completely pull this one off though. He just seemed over moody and depressed most of the time. I didn’t get that bad boy, full of charisma, feel that someone like Burt Lancaster would bring to the dark screen. To be fair, he did the best with the screenplay as he could. It’s a worthy movie to tick off but let’s not be kidding ourselves, we all here to see those humble beginnings of a young Judah Ben-Hur.

Rating score

Wolfman’s rating 6.5/10       IMDB 6.7/10

Feel free to recommend me related movies and any other trivia if you wish. Keep having fun at the movies…. Mikey Wolf

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