the leading man is my tpye

The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.

It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

NOTES: Charlton Heston's professional movie debut. Locations filmed in Los Angeles and Las Vegas. All songs rendered by Lizabeth Scott.COMMENT: Disappointing. The script seems so attenuated as to lose its promise of suspense and tension along the way of what turns out to be a long-winded yarn. Romantic interludes with first Lizabeth Scott and then Viveca Lindfors don't help. And when the killer is finally revealed, it turns out to be a familiar cinema friend. A lot of the initial promise is dissipated by songs - lots of songs - plus tedious and unbelievable romancing, and much talk (like the scenes in Jagger's office) to little purpose. More of the smart ripostes given to Jack Webb in the early sequences would have been most welcome. Also more action - what little we have is confined to the beginning and the climax.Scott's performance is superficial, but Heston impresses in his professional screen debut, whilst Morgan, Webb and DeFore contribute solid support. To sum up, Heston was fortunate to make his debut in such good company. Begley and DeFore give stand-out portrayals and the rest of the players are no slackers either. Although disappointing in many respects, the script was directed with characteristic expertise by William Dieterle.

Those accustomed to seeing Charlton Heston stride across a big screen flowing robes and saying things like, "Bring on the Hebrew dancing girls," are liable to be disappointed. Chuck Heston may be taller than Michael Jordan but he's a small-time gambler here, and not a very pleasant one.Chuck is a member of a group that runs a small bookie joint in Los Angeles, the others being Ed Begley, Jack Webb, and Henry (Harry) Morgan Or maybe it's Harry (Henry) Morgan. It always mixes me up. There was another actor with a similar name from whom he wanted to distinguish himself and he did all too good a job of it. I can't grasp how he managed to untangle those two names himself. Maybe he was confused too. Why didn't he simply call himself H. H. Morgan? Or Humbert Humbert Morgan? Is that too much to ask? Has he no pity? Okay. I've been waiting twenty years to get that off my chest. Yes, doctor, thank you. the Xanax helped.The five hoods soon sort themselves out. They all cheat when they can inveigle some stranger into playing poker with them, but their attitudes towards cheating differ. Hubert Horatio Morgan, known as "Soldier," is a bit of a dull bulb but generous and mostly helpful. Ed Begley is a professional who harbors no particular ill will towards anyone but just makes his living by illegal bookmaking and gambling. Jack Webb is not his Dragnet self. Not at all. A cynical, hard-headed character whose guiding vision is a dollar sign. He snarls a lot and natters the good-natured Soldier.Heston has probably never had a nastier role. He was sometimes abrasive -- "The Big Country," "The Naked Jungle" -- but always proud and needful. In this film he has Lizabeth Scott (nee Emma Matzo) singing smoky ballads to him in her nightclub and mooning over him night and day. But due to some traumatic experiences with a woman while he was in the Army, he wants nothing to do with anybody. And he's not afraid to express himself. To Scott, who is trying to comfort him: "I want to be alone." To Webb: "Get out." The gang get the innocent Don DeFore hooked into a game in which DeFore unwisely loses five large that don't belong to him. He hangs himself. When DeFore's estranged, murderous brother gets wind of this, he begins stalking the gang members one by one. First to go is Ed Begley, found strangled in his flat. The police question Heston and Webb. "What was Barney like when you saw him last?" "He was -- just Barney," replies Heston indifferently, while Webb taps his foot impatiently, bored. Some friends, Begley had.Webb gets the feeling he's being stalked too. He turns all sweaty and fidgety. He IS being stalked, too, and by a Mount Everest of muscle, Mike Mazurka, in real life a former pro wrestler. Webb is found hanging in his bathroom but nobody grieves.Then it gets a little complicated, with Heston blowing town for a job in Las Vegas, trying to hide, knowing that if you're going to get lost, Las Vegas is the place to do it. He's gotten a little close to Don DeFore's widow, Viveca Lindfors, who is magnetic in appearance and demeanor but doesn't sparkle in the trashy way that Lizabeth Scott does.I won't give away the ending. It's about what you'd expect. In his first film, Heston isn't very expressive but then the role calls for a somewhat arid character. Not counting the sympathy generated by the plight of the two women -- one loving from afar, the other a the widow of a nice guy -- the best performance may come from Horatio Hornblower Morgan in the role of the moral simpleton. He could have crawled out of the pages of a Russian novel.

There is a lot to like about "Dark City" and it's an excellent example of film noir. While not as tough and gritty as some of the darker incarnations of noir, it still packs a nice punch and has some excellent characterizations--particularly Charton Heston and Jack Webb.Heston plays a world-weary and jaded professional gambler. He sees most people as suckers and has little to like about him. Inexplicably, Lizbeth Scott adores him and is the perfect enabler. She also keeps on holding out hope that Heston will reform and marry her.One night, Heston and his gambling partners come upon a pigeon (Don DeFore) and invite him for a 'nice friendly game of poker'. DeFore does well the first night--and he doesn't realize he's being set-up for a big killing, as the gamblers know he has a $5000 cashiers check on him. Not surprisingly, the next day, DeFore's luck sours and he's cleaned out--including this check that didn't turn out to belong to him. He signs it over to them---and then promptly kills himself! Two things almost immediately come to light. First, it turns out that one of the gamblers (Webb) was cheating. While these were pros, Heston and his other partner (Ed Begley) were not cheaters. Second, Begley becomes very nervous--saying that he thinks someone is following him. Soon, he's murdered! The police bring in Webb and Heston and inform him that they know about the game and even know who the killer is--DeFore's psychotic brother who'd spent much of his life institutionalized in a mental hospital!! And, apparently, he's soon coming to get Webb and Heston as well! Quite a bit happens after this--but you'll just have to tune in to see it yourself.Excellent writing, wonderful tension and nice acting--this one will keep you on the edge of your seat and is great for noir fanatics--like myself.

This film is crime noir since Danny Haley, its lead played admirably by Charlton Heston, in his first major Hollywood starring role is running an illegal bookie joint. The film, as no one else seems to have noticed, is about a man who because his British wife left him after the war and he is disillusioned by the military-industrial complex's fostering of postwar injustice, has taken up "hustling" instead of trying to play by the Establishment's rules. All throughout the movie, people keep blaming Danny for untrue things, his crime being in giving up on an increasingly corrupt postmodernist national government--i.e. neither being an altruistic Democrat nor an overworking Republican. In the film, Danny's place is raided by honest police officer Dean Jagger. The raid leaves Danny with no source of income. A stranger, Don DeFore, strikes up a conversation in Danny's hangout; he ends up in a poker game with Danny's bookie friends Soldier (Harry Morgan), Barney (Ed Begley Sr.) and Augie (Jack Webb). DeFore loses 5000 dollars in a crooked game, pays with a cashier's check and hangs himself in his hotel room that night--some of the money was not his...But, soon after, Barney is found hanged, and the rope was just put around his neck to make the crime look like a suicide. The jumpy, coward Augie and Danny figure that they are going to be the next targets, since they learn Arthur has a psychopathic brother, Sidney. They fly to Los Angeles to seek out the man's widow and get a photo of the brother. Soldier did not participate in the card game. He goes to work in a Vegas casino run by his old-time boxing friend Swede (Walter Sande). This intriguing setup is then turned toward Danny's life-altering meeting with Arthur's gorgeous widow (Viveca Lindfors). He has avoided making a commitment to Lizbeth Scott, a lounge singer who is very much in love with him. But seeing how determined the honest Lindfors is to make a life for her son, he decides to try to get enough money in Vegas to pay the widow back and pair with Scott. The kicker in the deal is the crazed Sidney is still hunting him and Augie as well. Cinematography is luminous B/W by Victor Milner, and the art direction by Franz Bachelin and Hans Dreier complements the great William Dieterle's direction effectively by my lights. Franz Waxman provided serviceable music, Sam Comer and Emile Kuri did complex set decorations; and the female participants looked lovely partly thanks to Edith Head's costumes.Larry Marcus' story "No Escape" has been adapted here by Ketti Frings, with John Meredyth Lucas. The script's episodic elements prevent this movie from being recognized for the fascinating character study it is. It is about what happens to those who for whatever reason stop trying to fight for life in the world of normative values, whoever the opponent, and who enter the world of the collective--crime--for whatever reason. In this story about Danny, the man who escapes the "dark city" he had thought to hide from life in, Charlton Heston is very good for his age. Jack Webb, a powerful radio actor, here turns in what I regard as his best screen performance ever as the nasty and cowardly Augie., Ed Begley Sr. was one of Hopllywood's best dramatic actors, infusing a small part in this feature with his usual dynamic intelligence; and Harry Morgan as the brassy "Soldier" is charismatic and effective. Viveca Lindfors is very well cast I suggest as the suffering but courageous wife; Don Defore was very good at playing a man shallower than he appeared, and here he has a lot to work with. This film is the first since Ayn Rand's "Love Letters" to reunite DeFore and Lizbeth Scott. Scott had limitations in drama although she was adept at comedy, and here she looks lovely as the singer, Fran. Others in the cast who showed to advantage included Dean Jagger, Walter Sande, Walter Burke, and many lesser known persons. Mike Mazurki was miscast as DeFore crazed brother but does his powerful best as usual. This is a very seminal-transitional film, I claim, from a period when noir films, crime or otherwise, had been set in the underworld, to the period where the breakdown of U.S. society had begun to affect law-abiding folk. It is also one of the post-war angst films wherein the war to "make the world safe for democracy" had been revealed as leading to difficulties for returning servicemen. It just misses being very good indeed.