Sadly, there’s no nudity in “The Naked Street.” I call false advertising…
I’m veering from the usual format here because I didn’t get up early enough to do all the usual. Also, the film was okay, but the ending was telegraphed about at the halfway point. So… yeah.
The plot was a bit silly, in that mob boss Phil Regal discovers his kid sister Rosalie is in the family way and that her baby-daddy Nicky is in Sing-Sing, on death row, with 60 days to live. (Apparently, he had a crazy-speedy trial, since Rosalie wasn’t even showing at this point…)
Phil then coerces the witnesses who sent Nicky to the big house to recant their testimonies, which they do. The charges end up being dropped by the prosecution, since this would allow the DA to try Nicky again for the murder he’s sure Nicky committed.
Phil then tells Nicky he arranged all this so that the no-good creep could make an honest woman of his sister. And Rosalie’s sure that Nicky will mend his penny-ante criminal ways with the love of a good woman.
Yeah, she’s a bit deluded…
Nicky resents the authority Phil exerts over his and Rosalie’s lives and, well, his attempt at making an honest living starts to unravel, through his own bad choices.
The acting was fine, given there are plenty of stars in this film: Anthony Quinn (Phil Regal), Farley Granger (Nicky Bradna), Anne Bancroft (Rosalie Regalzyk), and Peter Graves (McFarland, the journalist). (Oh, and the Nicky character was intended for rising star Richard Widmark, who’d already made those kinds of parts his trademark.) The trouble was the story and the pacing; the film felt a lot longer than the nearly 90 minutes that it was. So I give it 2.5 unfiltered cigarette puffs out of 5.
Next week’s film is 1948’s “I Love Trouble,” which was thought to have been lost…