While the City Sleeps

The owner of a newspaper group dies and his son takes over. The new owner creates a post that did not exist before: executive director. Who gets it he ties to a race. At the same time there is a serial killer in the city, killing young women, and the press has given him a name. The rule of the race is simple: whoever finds the killer takes the job. From then on the paper's editors are not chasing the story but chasing each other. Fritz Lang directs. Dana Andrews, George Sanders, Rhonda Fleming, Ida Lupino and Vincent Price are in the cast. The subject is not murder but journalism; the narrative shows the killer early and ties its tension not to who will catch him but to what each of them will do. Lang made this among his last American productions and directed only one more film afterwards. The hard side of it is the personal relations; the characters use each other, and the people close to them, to get information. The sections given to the killer carry the period's understanding of criminal psychology and look simple now. It was shot in a wide frame for the screen, and Lang uses the space by dividing it; the office scenes take place in areas separated by glass. Who it is for: viewers who like the noir tradition and Lang. Who it is not for: there are many characters, the romantic strands are weak, and the crime strand stays in second place.