The Naked Street (1955)

(On Cable TV, September 2022) As far as late-noirs go, The Naked Street is… adequate. It manages an impressive blend of romance and crime in its short duration, with a narrative revolving around a mobster’s attempt to save, then frames his sister’s no-good husband for punishment. When it comes to execution, it runs on inertia—it’s not that good of a movie when compared to others of the time, but the mid-1950s were good for noir: thus The Naked Street benefits from adequate if unspectacular writing and direction, comfortable cinematography, actors that knew their business (notably Anthony Quinn as the mobster, an incredibly young Anne Bancroft as his sister, and Farley Granger as the no-good husband) and a polish of studio-driven technical competence. There’s some structural irony in the plot’s evolution from “save the boyfriend” to “fry the husband,” and that’s good enough for noir fans who have seen everything else. Still, the pacing is slack, the dialogue pedestrian, and the directing uninspired—not enough to make it unpleasant, but enough to keep The Naked Street from being anything more than on the B-list.