The Street with No Name
Encyclopedia
The Street with No Name (1948) is a black-and-white
film noir
. The movie, a follow up to The House on 92nd Street
(1945
), tells the story of an undercover FBI agent, Gene Cordell (Mark Stevens
), who infiltrates a deadly crime gang. Cordell's superior, FBI Inspector George A. Briggs (Lloyd Nolan
) also appears in The House on 92nd Street. The movie, shot in a semidocumentary
style, takes place in the Skid Row section of fictional "Central City."
This is followed by a message from J. Edgar Hoover:
A crime wave, including a holdup and killing at a nightclub and a bank robbery in which a guard is killed, has hit Center City. A squad of FBI agents headed by inspector George A. Briggs meets with local FBI field officer Richard Atkins, police chief Bernard Harmatz and commissioner Ralph Demory. After Briggs interrogates suspect Robert Danker, who claims he was not involved in either killing and that he has been framed, various tests are run at the FBI laboratory in Washington that exonerate Danker. Later, Danker, who has been bailed out by "John Smith," is found stabbed to death. At the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia, Briggs briefs agent Gene Cordell, who is going undercover in Center City to try to infiltrate the gang Briggs thinks is responsible for all three killings. Cordell takes a bus into Center City and takes a room at the same skid row hotel in which Danker had been living. Fellow agent Cy Gordon is in a similar hotel across the street from him. Using the name George Manly, Cordell makes himself known in the area by going to the local gym and picking a fight with one of the boxers training there. He is spotted by owner Alec Stiles, who offers him cash if he can last against the boxer. He does so and Alec pays him off.
Later, in a nearby amusement arcade, Cordell tells Gordon that while he was at the gym, his Social Security card was stolen. As they talk, two policemen approach and arrest Cordell for a break-in at a jewelry store, where his card has been found. The FBI has provided a false record for Cordell, and he is bailed out by John Smith, who turns out to be Stiles. Through the police department, Stiles has acquired a copy of Cordell's phony FBI record and is impressed enough to invite him to join his organization. Later, Cordell meets with Briggs on board a ferry, and his report convinces Briggs that the Stiles gang are their culprits. After Stiles and his henchmen plan a robbery of a local mansion, Stiles has a violent argument with his wife Judy. Cordell alerts Gordon about the robbery and the FBI and police prepare an ambush, but Stiles' informant within the police department tips him off and he cancels the job. Cordell returns to gang headquarters and fires a shot from Stiles' revolver in order to recover the bullet for testing. However, Stiles discovers that his gun has been fired and goes to see his informant, Commissioner Demory, and asks him to have his gun checked for fingerprints. Demory later advises Stiles that his gang has been infiltrated by Cordell.
Shivvy and Matty, two of Stiles' henchmen, take Cordell to see Stiles and Gordon follows them in a taxi. Briggs, who has been observing Stiles and can link him to Demory, then receives a report from Washington that the barrel markings on the bullet fired from Stiles' gun are identical with those on the bullets used in the previous killings. After Gordon tracks Shivvy, Matty and Cordell to a factory, he tells the taxi driver to get word to Briggs as to where he is. Inside the plant, Shivvy discovers and then stabs Gordon. Cordell does not realize he has been found out until Stiles announces he is going to frame him and have Demory's officers "accidentally" kill him. However, the plan backfires when Briggs and Chief Harmatz arrive with backup and chase Stiles through the factory. Cordell corners Stiles and kills him, and as Briggs arrests Demory, agent Gordon recovers.
, but she turned it down, calling it an "unimportant role". She furthermore said: "After playing that role, I won't have any name". As a result, she was put on suspension by Fox.
magazine wrote, "A double-barreled gangster film, The Street with No Name ranks at the top of the list of documentary-type productions which have been rolling out of the 20th-Fox lot. This pic has a lean, tough surface wrapped around a nucleus of explosive violence. Beneath its documentary exterior there lies a straight melodrama that harks back to the great gangster films of the early 1930s...Along a continuous line of fresh details, film includes a crackerjack fight sequence between Stevens and a professional pug, a glimpse into the FBI machinery, and a slambang finale in which the cops and the hoodlums shoot it out in an industrial plant. In a secondary role, Lloyd Nolan, playing the same Inspector Briggs of the FBI of The House on 92nd Street, delivers with his usual competence."
More recently, critic Dennis Schwartz wrote, "William Keighley (Bullets or Ballots
/G Men
) ably directs in a no-nonsense manner this semi-documentary styled crime drama, while Harry Kleiner provides the taut script; it follows in the authentically atmospheric territory carved out by The House on 92nd Street (1945). The film noir gets its colorful flavorings from star Richard Widmark playing another psychopathic killer like he did in Kiss of Death
...The film's main purpose is to tell in an entertaining fashion how efficient the FBI is and how dangerous is their work. But the film is well-acted, has terrific shadowy visuals courtesy of Joe MacDonald, frighteningly conveys the feeling of a corrupt city, and never pretends to be anything more arty than a good cops and robbers action film. On those merits, it's watchable."
's House of Bamboo
(1955).
Black-and-white
Black-and-white, often abbreviated B/W or B&W, is a term referring to a number of monochrome forms in visual arts.Black-and-white as a description is also something of a misnomer, for in addition to black and white, most of these media included varying shades of gray...
film noir
Film noir
Film noir is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and sexual motivations. Hollywood's classic film noir period is generally regarded as extending from the early 1940s to the late 1950s...
. The movie, a follow up to The House on 92nd Street
The House on 92nd Street
The House on 92nd Street is a 1945 black-and-white spy film directed by Henry Hathaway. The film, shot mainly in New York City, was released shortly after the end of World War II. The House on 92nd Street was made with the full cooperation of the Federal Bureau of Investigation , and its head, J....
(1945
1945 in film
The year 1945 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* Paramount Studios releases theatrical short cartoon titled The Friendly Ghost, featuring a ghost named Casper.* With Rossellini's Roma Città aperta, Italian neorealist cinema begins....
), tells the story of an undercover FBI agent, Gene Cordell (Mark Stevens
Mark Stevens (actor)
-Career:Born Richard William Stevens in Cleveland, Ohio, he first studied to become a painter before becoming active in theater work. He then launched a radio career as an announcer in Akron, Ohio....
), who infiltrates a deadly crime gang. Cordell's superior, FBI Inspector George A. Briggs (Lloyd Nolan
Lloyd Nolan
Lloyd Benedict Nolan was an American film and television actor.-Biography:Nolan was born in San Francisco, California, the son of Margaret and James Nolan, who was a shoe manufacturer...
) also appears in The House on 92nd Street. The movie, shot in a semidocumentary
Semidocumentary
Semidocumentary is a form of book, film, or television program presenting a fictional story that incorporates many factual details or actual events, or which is presented in a manner similar to a documentary...
style, takes place in the Skid Row section of fictional "Central City."
Plot
The opening credits include the following foreword:
The motion picture you are about to see was adapted from the files of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Wherever possible, it was photographed in the original locale and played by the actual FBI personnel involved.
This is followed by a message from J. Edgar Hoover:
The street on which crime flourishes is the street extending across America. It is the street with no name. Organized gangsterism is once again returning. If permitted to go unchecked three out of every four Americans will eventually become its victims. Wherever law and order break down there you will find public indifference. An alert and vigilant America will make for a secure America.
A crime wave, including a holdup and killing at a nightclub and a bank robbery in which a guard is killed, has hit Center City. A squad of FBI agents headed by inspector George A. Briggs meets with local FBI field officer Richard Atkins, police chief Bernard Harmatz and commissioner Ralph Demory. After Briggs interrogates suspect Robert Danker, who claims he was not involved in either killing and that he has been framed, various tests are run at the FBI laboratory in Washington that exonerate Danker. Later, Danker, who has been bailed out by "John Smith," is found stabbed to death. At the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia, Briggs briefs agent Gene Cordell, who is going undercover in Center City to try to infiltrate the gang Briggs thinks is responsible for all three killings. Cordell takes a bus into Center City and takes a room at the same skid row hotel in which Danker had been living. Fellow agent Cy Gordon is in a similar hotel across the street from him. Using the name George Manly, Cordell makes himself known in the area by going to the local gym and picking a fight with one of the boxers training there. He is spotted by owner Alec Stiles, who offers him cash if he can last against the boxer. He does so and Alec pays him off.
Later, in a nearby amusement arcade, Cordell tells Gordon that while he was at the gym, his Social Security card was stolen. As they talk, two policemen approach and arrest Cordell for a break-in at a jewelry store, where his card has been found. The FBI has provided a false record for Cordell, and he is bailed out by John Smith, who turns out to be Stiles. Through the police department, Stiles has acquired a copy of Cordell's phony FBI record and is impressed enough to invite him to join his organization. Later, Cordell meets with Briggs on board a ferry, and his report convinces Briggs that the Stiles gang are their culprits. After Stiles and his henchmen plan a robbery of a local mansion, Stiles has a violent argument with his wife Judy. Cordell alerts Gordon about the robbery and the FBI and police prepare an ambush, but Stiles' informant within the police department tips him off and he cancels the job. Cordell returns to gang headquarters and fires a shot from Stiles' revolver in order to recover the bullet for testing. However, Stiles discovers that his gun has been fired and goes to see his informant, Commissioner Demory, and asks him to have his gun checked for fingerprints. Demory later advises Stiles that his gang has been infiltrated by Cordell.
Shivvy and Matty, two of Stiles' henchmen, take Cordell to see Stiles and Gordon follows them in a taxi. Briggs, who has been observing Stiles and can link him to Demory, then receives a report from Washington that the barrel markings on the bullet fired from Stiles' gun are identical with those on the bullets used in the previous killings. After Gordon tracks Shivvy, Matty and Cordell to a factory, he tells the taxi driver to get word to Briggs as to where he is. Inside the plant, Shivvy discovers and then stabs Gordon. Cordell does not realize he has been found out until Stiles announces he is going to frame him and have Demory's officers "accidentally" kill him. However, the plan backfires when Briggs and Chief Harmatz arrive with backup and chase Stiles through the factory. Cordell corners Stiles and kills him, and as Briggs arrests Demory, agent Gordon recovers.
Cast
- Mark StevensMark Stevens (actor)-Career:Born Richard William Stevens in Cleveland, Ohio, he first studied to become a painter before becoming active in theater work. He then launched a radio career as an announcer in Akron, Ohio....
as Gene Cordell/George Manly - Richard WidmarkRichard WidmarkRichard Weedt Widmark was an American film, stage and television actor.He was nominated for an Academy Award for his role as the villainous Tommy Udo in his debut film, Kiss of Death...
as Alec Stiles - Lloyd NolanLloyd NolanLloyd Benedict Nolan was an American film and television actor.-Biography:Nolan was born in San Francisco, California, the son of Margaret and James Nolan, who was a shoe manufacturer...
as Inspector George A. Briggs - Barbara Lawrence as Judy Stiles
- Ed BegleyEd BegleyEdward James Begley, Sr. was an Academy Award-winning American actor.-Biography:Born in Hartford, Connecticut, Begley began his career as a Broadway and radio actor while in his teens. He appeared in the hit musical Going Up on Broadway in 1917 and in London the next year. He later acted in...
as Police Chief Bernard Harmatz - Donald BukaDonald BukaDonald Buka was an American supporting actor in films and television from 1943 to 1971 when he appeared in A Memory of Two Mondays.He appeared in episodes of Dragnet, Ironside and The High Chaparral....
as Shivvy - Joseph PevneyJoseph PevneyJoseph Pevney was an American film and television director.-Biography:Pevney was born on September 15, 1911 in New York City, New York.He made his debut in vaudeville as a boy soprano in 1924...
as Matty - John McIntireJohn McIntireJohn McIntire was an American character actor.-Career:The craggy-faced film actor was born in Spokane in eastern Washington State but reared in Montana, growing up around ranchers and cowboys, an experience that would later inspire his performances in dozens of westerns.A graduate of USC, McIntire...
as Cy Gordon
Production
The role of Judy Stiles was offered to June HaverJune Haver
June Haver , was an American film actress. She is most well known as a popular star of 20th Century-Fox musicals in the late 1940s, most notably The Dolly Sisters with Betty Grable and John Payne and also for playing the 1920s Broadway actress Marilyn Miller in Look for the Silver Lining...
, but she turned it down, calling it an "unimportant role". She furthermore said: "After playing that role, I won't have any name". As a result, she was put on suspension by Fox.
Critical reception
When the film was released the staff at VarietyVariety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...
magazine wrote, "A double-barreled gangster film, The Street with No Name ranks at the top of the list of documentary-type productions which have been rolling out of the 20th-Fox lot. This pic has a lean, tough surface wrapped around a nucleus of explosive violence. Beneath its documentary exterior there lies a straight melodrama that harks back to the great gangster films of the early 1930s...Along a continuous line of fresh details, film includes a crackerjack fight sequence between Stevens and a professional pug, a glimpse into the FBI machinery, and a slambang finale in which the cops and the hoodlums shoot it out in an industrial plant. In a secondary role, Lloyd Nolan, playing the same Inspector Briggs of the FBI of The House on 92nd Street, delivers with his usual competence."
More recently, critic Dennis Schwartz wrote, "William Keighley (Bullets or Ballots
Bullets or Ballots
Bullets or Ballots is a 1936 gangster film starring Edward G. Robinson, Joan Blondell, Barton MacLane and Humphrey Bogart. Robinson plays a police detective who infiltrates a crime gang.-Cast:*Edward G...
/G Men
G Men
G Men is a 1935 Warner Bros. crime film starring James Cagney and Ann Dvorak. It also marked Lloyd Nolan's film debut. According to Variety Magazine, it was one of the top-grossing films of 1935....
) ably directs in a no-nonsense manner this semi-documentary styled crime drama, while Harry Kleiner provides the taut script; it follows in the authentically atmospheric territory carved out by The House on 92nd Street (1945). The film noir gets its colorful flavorings from star Richard Widmark playing another psychopathic killer like he did in Kiss of Death
Kiss of Death (1947 film)
Kiss of Death is a 1947 film noir movie directed by Henry Hathaway and written by Ben Hecht and Charles Lederer from a story by Eleazar Lipsky. The story revolves around the film's protagonist, a former robber, and the antagonist, the ruthless, violent Tommy Udo...
...The film's main purpose is to tell in an entertaining fashion how efficient the FBI is and how dangerous is their work. But the film is well-acted, has terrific shadowy visuals courtesy of Joe MacDonald, frighteningly conveys the feeling of a corrupt city, and never pretends to be anything more arty than a good cops and robbers action film. On those merits, it's watchable."
Remake
Harry Kleiner's screenplay was reworked seven years later for Samuel FullerSamuel Fuller
Samuel Michael Fuller was an American screenwriter, novelist, and film director known for low-budget genre movies with controversial themes.-Personal life:...
's House of Bamboo
House of Bamboo
House of Bamboo is an American color film noir shot in CinemaScope format. The film was directed by Samuel Fuller.The film is a loose remake of The Street with No Name , by the same screenwriter and cinematographer as in the original.-Plot:In 1954, a military train guarded by American soldiers...
(1955).
Awards
Nominations- Writers Guild of AmericaWriters Guild of AmericaThe Writers Guild of America is a generic term referring to the joint efforts of two different US labor unions:* The Writers Guild of America, East , representing TV and film writers East of the Mississippi....
: WGA Award (Screen); The Robert Meltzer Award, Screenplay Dealing Most Ably with Problems of the American Scene, Harry Kleiner; 1949.
External links
- The Street with No Name at Film Noir of the Week