City That Never Sleeps

A disillusioned Chicago cop plans to use dirty money to fund his break for freedom with a strip joint girl, but the plan goes tragically wrong and instead, much sobered, he gets his teeth into the hunt for a killer that ends on elevated railway tracks. Shot on location in Chicago in the semi-documentary style popular in the 50s., John Auer directed and Steve Fisher wrote this police procedural film in the vein of the popular Detective Story of two years earlier. The film juggles around four characters through a particularly bad night in a Chicago precinct — Johnny Kelly (Gig Young), a stressed out cop ready to crack; Sally “Angel Face” Connors (Mala Powers), a cheap strumpet lounge singer; Hayes Stewart (William Talman), a former magician and present thug; Penrod Biddel (Edward Arnold), a smooth and corrupt district attorney; and Sgt. Joe (Chill Wills), an Everyman character, known as “The Voice of Chicago.” The skimpy plot concerns Kelly, who is having an affair with Angel Face and is ready to quit his job and leave his wife Kathy (Paula Raymond) at the drop of a hat. In order to get quick money to escape Chicago and start life anew with Angel Face, Kelly accepts an assignment and a payment from Biddel to escort low-life Stewart across the state line., A police officer—unhappy with his job and his marriage—decides to leave both behind him the next day. Suddenly, he is partnered with a mysterious cop for an exceedingly eventful last night on duty., Realistic drama about the Chicago police and its activities, focusing on one particular cop whose working and private lives clash on one fateful night.