Featured Audience Ratings

• Michael G

  
  While the City Sleeps is a decent Fritz Lang movie that for the most part manages to blend a murder mystery with a movie about the newspaper business. Vincent Price does well enough as the vacuous and generally clueless inheritor of a newspaper that chums the waters with a promotion… More
  While the City Sleeps is a decent Fritz Lang movie that for the most part manages to blend a murder mystery with a movie about the newspaper business. Vincent Price does well enough as the vacuous and generally clueless inheritor of a newspaper that chums the waters with a promotion between the 3 main horses in the running. The romantic storyline between Dana Andrews and Sally Forrest got a little annoying and overall, the cast was pretty good even if George Sanders and Ida Lupino were grossly underused. Regardless, Lang pulled it together at the end even if it did fall out of orbit for most of the 3rd act.

• Walter M

  
  In "While the City Sleeps," Edward Mobley(Dana Andrews) is left with the tough job of having to announce the death of Amos Kyne(Robert Warwick), the owner of Kyne Media and his boss, on his nightly newscast. That leaves the company in the less than capable hands of… More
  In "While the City Sleeps," Edward Mobley(Dana Andrews) is left with the tough job of having to announce the death of Amos Kyne(Robert Warwick), the owner of Kyne Media and his boss, on his nightly newscast. That leaves the company in the less than capable hands of Amos' playboy son Walter(Vincent Price) who does not inspire his new employees. At least, he realizes his shortcomings by announcing the new position of Executive Director which he makes a contest between Mark Loving(George Sanders), John Day Griffith(Thomas Mitchell) and Harry Kritzer(James Craig). So, the spoils go to whoever reveals the identity of the lipstick killer(John Barrymore Jr.). "While the City Sleeps" is an entertaining movie performed with aplomb by a marvelous cast(not forgetting Ida Lupino and who could?) that owes more than a little debt to King Lear in its division of a kingdom.(And a character also references Macbeth.) And director Fritz Lang is certainly in his element here, again exploring civic responsibility with newspapers and related media in a free society that cannot properly function if they work entirely out of self-interest, as depicted here. As Amos puts it, a newspaper allows the citizens to make up their own mind while at the same time he puts the lipstick killer on the front page to scare everybody. Even though there is a killer on the loose, that's no reason to panic. And it is certainly no reason to take a cheap shot at comic books even in the wake of organized hysteria.

• Ed Fucking H

  
  A pretty decent film noir from Fritz Lang. While not nearly as massive a film as say M or Metropolis, this is still a very well done film, even if it isn't perfect. This is part murder mystery and part a movie about the newspaper buisiness and to be honest I kinda would have… More
  A pretty decent film noir from Fritz Lang. While not nearly as massive a film as say M or Metropolis, this is still a very well done film, even if it isn't perfect. This is part murder mystery and part a movie about the newspaper buisiness and to be honest I kinda would have prefered if they had chosen one or the other to focus on, preferably the murder mystery as I found that to be the most interesting aspect of this. The love story on the side I could have done without altogether. Vincent Price is in this as the useless son, who has inhearited this newspaper comapny from his recently deceased father, without having any clue of how to actually run a newspaper company. He's good in his role. I also liked the kid who played 'the Lipstick Killer'. All in all a good film, that has some minor flaws but is worth watching for fans of Fritz Lang or Film Noir in general.