It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

It is interesting even when nothing much happens, which is for most of its 3-hour running time. Read full review

As most people already know, this was Charlton Heston's very first Hollywood film at Paramount. He's very thin, very young, and very good in it. I think the story has an excellent premise-- it's a noir version of Agatha Christie's AND THEN THERE WERE NONE, where a killer is picking off a group of cons one by one. But the script is a bit padded in the middle. It did not need 97 minutes running time...it could have been told adequately in 75 minutes. And one has to wonder which city is darker-- Chicago, Los Angeles, or Las Vegas (since the action occurs in all three places).Lizabeth Scott is good in all her dramatic scenes but sorry to say her lip syncing is pretty phony when she is trying to get over the illusion she's a singer. Don DeFore does a great job as a doomed gambler, and so does Ed Begley Sr. In his memoirs, Heston called this a good B film. I'm not sure producer Hal Wallis would have labeled it such. It's an A film that doesn't quite live up to its potential, but the moments of greatness in it (and there are some) do outshine the parts that don't work.

Before going any further with that question, we need to make a distinction between expressionistic musicals like "My Fair Lady" (1964) or "Grease" (1978) and backstage musicals like "Gold Diggers of 1933" (1933) or "New York, New York" (1977). In the former, it is sometimes said, somewhat derisively, that people are just walking down the street and then break out into song, accompanied by a disembodied orchestra. In the latter, the singing and dancing occurs during rehearsals or on stage during a performance. In other words, it is realistic, something you might actually see and hear in real life. Actually, Busby Berkeley musicals are not realistic in the sense that the numbers could never be performed on a real stage, but they are more realistic than expressionistic musicals."Dark City" is certainly not an expressionistic musical. But does it qualify as a backstage musical? Early in the movie, we see Fran (Lizabeth Scott) singing a song in a nightclub. I thought to myself, her singing sounds fine to me, but I suspect a lot of people would say that she cannot sing, although I understand that the singing was dubbed anyway. But then, I further reflected, I don't have a good ear, so who am I to judge?After she finishes her song, Danny (Charlton Heston), her boyfriend, tells her he liked her song, to which she replies, "Aren't we a pair? I can't sing and you don't have a good ear." That took me back a little.Anyway, I mused that even though the movie had a song in it, it was not a musical, because one song does not a musical make. But then she sang another song, and another, and another, until she sang five in all. Still, the movie did not seem to me to be a musical, and it would not have been, even if they had managed to squeeze one more number into it. Moreover, just to get an objective assessment, I checked Internet Movie Database and Netflix, and neither of them classified it as a musical, but only as a crime drama or film noir.In reflecting on why this was so, I thought back on that earlier comment by her that she could not sing, followed later by another remark to the effect that singing in a nightclub was just a way of making a living, something she would gladly give up if Danny would marry her. And that must be the key. In the typical backstage musical, the main performers are ambitious, just waiting for their chance to take the spotlight and become a star. Or, as in a Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland movie, where Rooney gets the idea of putting on a show to save whatever it is that needs saving in that movie, the success of the show is what matters. In other words, in a backstage musical, it is not a question of how much singing and dancing there is, but whether the plot centers around the performers qua performers, their individual success or the success of the show as a whole.In "Dark City," on the other hand, the plot centers around people that are not performing musical numbers. Rather, Danny is a bookie who has been put out of business by too many raids and is looking for a bankroll so he can move to another town. He and his pals get a sucker into a poker game and take him for all his money. The sucker is devastated and commits suicide. Now the police are investigating the situation and the sucker's brother is out to kill everyone that was in the game. As a result, the songs Fran sings are just fillers, which actually have the effect of slowing the movie down.As a crime drama, the movie is mediocre, but as an illustration of the fact that a backstage musical must be more than just a bunch of musical numbers, this movie is instructive.

Charlton Heston, a man that worked extensively in the American cinema, was seen for the first time in an important role in "Dark City", a decent drama-mystery with shades of film noir. This vehicle clearly took him to a prominent position in Hollywood. The German director William Dieterle, a veteran in the industry, was a reliable man to have behind the camera, as he proves here.The story of Dan Haley, a young man that went from a somewhat privilege life to one on the other side of the tracks, is not too credible as the story develops, nothing redeems this man until he realizes what the consequence of his actions have a profound effect on the family of the man that he enticed into a poker game in which he and his underworld associates tried to get money that had been entrusted to the victim.Dan was seeing the beautiful night club singer, Fran Garland, who obviously loves him. She knows there is something shady with Dan, but is she wants to believe that he has a good side. Things get complicated with the arrival of the widow of the man that was murdered, who knows nothing about the connection to Haley and his comrades. When he and Augie follow her to Los Angeles, he suffers a change of heart because he realizes what he was instrumental in destroying.Charlton Heston's performance dominates the picture. Lizabeth Scott also enhanced it with an honest take of the singer. Viveca Lindfors shows up as the widow of the victim. The supporting cast is excellent, Dean Jagger, Don DeFore, Frank Morgan, Jack Webb, Ed Begley, and specially the brutish Mike Mazurski, contribute to the over all enjoyment of "Dark City" Victor Milner's black and white cinematography works well with the story being told. Franz Waxman musical score also serves the narrative well.

(There are Spoilers) Charlton Heston known for the Biblical epics and movies with cast of thousands that he made during his fifty or so year career in motion pictures started out in his very first movie, back in 1950, in a little known film-noir curiosity piece playing a small-time hoodlum running a bookie joint in Chicago.Having his gambling den raided three time in just over a month by the cops, even though he was paying them off, has Dan Haley, Charlton Heston,and his three fellow bookies Barney, Ed Bagely, Augie, Jack Webb, and Soldier, Henry Morgan, wonder if they should get into a much safer business like working a bar or being a croupier in a casino. Trying to figure out where the next dollar is coming from Dan goes to the nightclub where his girlfriend Fran Garland, Lizabeth Scott,is doing a show and runs into out of town businessman Arthur Winant, Don DeFore. Seeing Winant pull out a number of big bills, including a $5,000.00 bank check, from his wallet as he paid for his drink Dan invites him for a game of cards at his now closed down bookie joint with his friends Barney Augie & Soldier. Winning $350.00 from the four book-makers Arthur is invited back the next evening, his last day in Chicago, for another card game with the four wanting another chance to win back their money. This time around the bookies were ready for Winant and had the cards rigged, or marked, wiping the poor guy out of everything he had including his $5,000.00 bank check, which Winant signed over to them, which didn't even belong to him. Sick depressed and heart broken Winant goes back to his hotel room and hangs himself. It turns out that Arthur Winart's older brother Sidney, Mike Mazurki, found his body and called the police but Sidney didn't wait around for them to show up, he went out looking for those who drove his brother to kill himself, Dan Barney Augie & Soldier, and pay them back in kind. Superior film-noir thriller with Sidney Winant, who spent a number of years in a mental institution for the criminally insane, out hunting down and killing those responsible for his brothers, Arthur, death and going from Chicago to Los Angeles to Las Vages to do it. Murdering Barney in Chicago and making it look like he killed himself, by hanging, Sidney has the remaining bookies on the run not even knowing What he, Sidney Winant, even looks like. Both Dan & Augie travel to Los Angeles to see the late Arthur's wife Victoria, Viveca Lindfors, to get a photo of Sidney to be able to spot him before he attacks and murders them. Dan saying that he's an insurance investigator and that Victoria and Sidney are to receive a $10,000.00 policy that Arthur made out to them can't get a photo of Sidney since Victoria burnt all the photos she had of him wanting to keep him out of her memory forever, he's a dangerous homicidal lunatic she tells Dan.Dan for his part starts to fall in love with Victoria and want's to give her back the check that her dead husband Arthur signed over to him. When Dan tell's her that he's one of the people who cheated him out of his money, that lead to his suicide, she rejected both Dan and the check.Back in his L.A motel room Dan finds that Sidney got to Augie, while he was at Victoria's house, with him hanging in the shower with a rope tied around his neck. The movie then moves to Las Vagas with Dan on the run getting a job as a card dealer at his friends Swede's, Walter Sande, casino and meeting his fellow bookie Soldier and his girlfriend from the "Windy City" Fran who both were working there. Sidney finding out that Dan is in Vegas from Victoria's young son Billy, Mark Keuning,makes his way down there from L.A. Victoria then unexpectedly calls Dan and warns him about her brother-in-law finding out where he is has the police using Dan as bait set a trap for the big gorilla, Sidney is well over six feet tall and weighs about 270 pounds. The plan almost backfires when Sidney get's to Dan before they, the police,can get there in time to save Dan's life.