Although Anthony Quinn isn't really on my list of favorite actors, he was considered an excellent actor for a reason. This little known (and contemporarily disliked) film from the 1950s shows this to great effect. In it, Quinn portrays Phil Regal, a criminal who uses his racketeering skills in order to secure the release of a murderer whom he wants his sister to be married to. He does this because Phil has convinced his sister Rosalie (Anne Bancroft) that the killer, Nicky (Farley Granger), is innocent. It's already known that Rosalie is about to have Nicky's child, but he was arrested and sentenced to the chair shortly afterwards. We see how Nicky stabs the salesman of a liquor store to death after he doesn't give him a large amount of money. An Italian business owner named Cardini, as well as another witness, are blackmailed into saying they didn't see Nicky run off after stabbing the person. Thanks to Phil's actions, Nicky gets out of prison and is not executed. At first, Rosalie is really happy to see Nicky again, but when the time comes for her to birth her son, everyone gets some devastating news. The baby has apparently been choked by his umbilical cord. Phil flies into a rage and starts going off on Nicky, saying how he only got him out of jail to make Rosalie satisfied, and that he hoped at least one good thing would come from his return, but now all that's gone because his son is dead. Nick, tired of getting pushed around by Phil, plots his revenge. He starts dating Phil's sister, which Phil definitely isn't happy about. Using his influence, he gets a murder case to be connected to Nicky, and he gets sent back to death row. There isn't anyone to save him this time. A reporter visits Nicky in prison, and Nicky tells him to print a story about how he's the one who killed the store owner, and how Phil threatened people not to talk about it. The story is published, but Nicky is fried anyway. Still, Rosalie reads the story and gets angry at her brother about how he lied to her and said Nicky wasn't a criminal, and thus would have made a fine husband. Phil tries shooting the reporter, but the cops show up to arrest him. In one last act of defiance, he tries to jump over a gap separating the roofs of two apartment buildings, but misses his jump and falls to his death. I'm not sure about anyone else, but I was a little let down by how anticlimactic this film was. Quinn gives an explosive and energetic performance as Phil, but movies typically depend on the performances of multiple actors to succeed and not just one. I didn't care for Nicky as a person. He really deserves to die for what he did, and after Phil secures his release, he isn't even thankful. This made me glad when he eventually is punished, even if the movie doesn't actually show the execution. Bancroft was alright, but didn't really have anything interesting to say or do. I did at least like the ending, since the movie wasn't afraid to leave off on a really depressing note. We just see Rosalie crying after her brother just fell off the building, and that's it. Overall, out of all the noir movies I've seen lately, this is one of the weaker ones. I didn't really find the story that convincing or intriguing, and the actors aside from Quinn just didn't do it for me. Compared to noirs such as Quicksand or The Hitchhiker, this just doesn't have the same fulfillment. If Quinn wasn't in this, I'd probably rate this much lower.
Review of The Naked Street
