Very Cool!!!

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

De gustibus non est disputandum...Taste is not a matter for argument. The great director's next-to-last American-made movie is either a fine example of the man's social criticism or a tedious melodrama. Review "numbers" that we amateur critics have given the film range from a barely watchable 4 to an enthusiastic 10. Talk about a lack of consensus.The twin plot lines concern a fight over management of a news media empire and the hunt for a young male serial murderer of attractive women. The element connecting the two is the contest among executives set up by the callow new owner of the company, the ne'er do well son of the hard-working founder. The "contest" offers the position of second-in-command to the newsman who solves the mystery of the murderer.The newsmen are a mixture of high-mindedness and venality, genuine romance and shabby use of women. I don't have a clue as to the background of my fellow reviewers, so I can't say why some found insightfulness in Lang's portrayal of a modern news media company while others, such as this reviewer, saw nothing beyond the obvious. It was the longer scenes between male and female that proved hardest for me to watch, and not because Lang was making an unpleasant point. To be blunt, the scenes seemed ridiculous. We've all seen films with lots of snappy dialogue between men and women, in which realism takes a back seat to cleverness. There's nothing snappy in these scenes.If one is curious, one might want to watch this movie to see how unfamiliarity with the everyday behavior of people from a different culture than a director's own distorts the director's attempt to produce realistic scenes.

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.

Robert Warwick appears and then dies at the beginning of While The City Sleeps. He's a Rupert Murdoch type media tycoon and he's left his empire to his rather unsteady son Vincent Price. Price is second generation wealth and looking to put his personal stamp on the empire bequeathed to him. But he'll need someone who really knows the business and three candidates present themselves, Thomas Mitchell, George Sanders, and James Craig. All of them use fair and foul means to gain the prize. Craig's is the foulest of all, he's carrying on with Price's tramp of a wife in Rhonda Fleming hoping the two of them will influence Price.We've got a couple of other players in this field also. Dana Andrews sides with Mitchell who edits the local tabloid similar to the Murdoch run New York Post. Andrews has won Pulitzer Prizes the two of them decide to aid the police in capturing a serial killer before that term came into use who is targeting young women. Andrews baits the killer in his nightly newscast and also happens to mention he's just gotten engaged to Sally Forrest who works as George Sanders's secretary in the wire service portion of the empire. In a really slick piece of casting against type Sanders while having a more or less undefined role, comes off as the most sympathetic character of the lot.Andrews ostensibly the hero is a real creep for using his girl friend Forrest as bait even with the connivance of his friend Detective Howard Duff in charge of the investigation. It nearly goes wrong.John Drew Barrymore who had an odd career being the holder of that great name of the theater. In 1956 people had memories of his father and probably expected a classical actor in that vein. Instead Barrymore had he not had that name might have found himself a niche in Hollywood with the newer post war rebel types like James Dean or Marlon Brando. This film is one of his best performances as the woman hating, mother fixated serial killer in a career that quite frankly featured a lot of junk.In the few scenes she's in, but stealing every one of them is Ida Lupino as an acid tongued gossip columnist in the Hedda Hopper tradition. She in her way gets the final say on who becomes top dog.While The City Sleeps is one of the most cynical and jaded films ever to come out of Hollywood. Fritz Lang mixed a really great cast together with a great script and got quite an indictment of the news business, predating Network by 20 years. His happy ending for Andrews and Forrest didn't ring true, but other than that a great piece of work.

Fritz Lang's Hollywood career was almost ending in 1956. His choice to direct this film will baffle anyone that has followed the master's career from his early days in Germany. The picture marked almost the end of his involvement in the American cinema for he only directed "Beyond a Reasonable Doubt" after this one, then left for Germany.The film combines two subjects that were close to Mr. Lang's heart, crime, and the way he perceived the empowerment of the news media in the country. We suspect the inspiration for this film might have been CBS, one of the most powerful networks in the land, and his star correspondent, Edward R. Morrow, a figure that might have influenced his own take on Edward Mobley, the television newscaster that is the clear favorite of the founder of the empire, Amos Kyne.The film combines the newspaper drama with that of a serial killer, an event that occupies the front page and the leading piece in Mobley's telecast. As Amos Kyne dies, there is a power struggle trying to be selected as the successor to the founder. The weak son of the late Amos Kyne, Walter, is the one to call the shots, as whom will be in charge of the media corporation, while the killer gets involved in the story in curious ways.The film gathered enough talent to make it commercially viable. Dana Andrews, with his good looks, was the perfect choice to play Mobley. The ensemble cast was wonderful because it brought together George Sanders, Thomas Mitchell, Ida Lupino, Vincent Price, Rhonda Fleming, and the menacing John Drew Barrymore Jr. to give the director a satisfying film.The only puzzling sequence involves a supposedly subway chase with a Los Angeles setting, something that clearly did not make much sense for those that realized the conflict of sites.