Joe Eisinger Movies

Night and the City is a remake of the 1950 Richard Widmark vehicle of the same name. Major changes: As played by Robert DeNiro, the Widmark character, one Harry Fabian, is no longer merely a two-bit tout but instead a two-bit lawyer; and the film is set in New York, as opposed to the London setting of the original. While embroiled in a lawsuit involving a boxer, Fabian becomes fascinated in the world of championship prizefights. Always susceptible to get-rich-quick schemes, Fabian tries to organize his own big boxing event, but to do that he needs the help of hardnosed promoter Alan King--and to get to King, Fabian uses the promoter's father, former boxer Jack Warden, to act as front man. Fabian scurries around lying and double-dealing in order to sell percentages of the upcoming bout, while King warns Fabian of the consequences should anything unfortunate happen to the ailing Warden. Disaster plagues Fabian as his boxers fail to pass their physicals, and Warden dies while setting up the big event. Pursued by King and his creditors, the terrified Fabian is urged by girlfriend Jessica Lange to get of town. Instead, Fabian decides to face up to his failings for the first time in his life, and stands his ground for the final, fatal confrontation. Like the earlier Widmark film, the 1992 Night and the City is based on a novel by Gerald Kersh. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

From Dr. No director Terence Young comes this action thriller starring Charles Bronson as Joe Moran, an ex-con whose old gang of drug dealers has just been released from prison. When it turns out the thugs have been holding a grudge against him, they kidnap Moran's wife, played by Liv Ullmann. In order to get her back and get his revenge, Moran is forced to take on the whole crew by himself. Written by Albert Simonin and Shimon Wincelberg, Cold Sweat was based on the novel Ride the Nightmare by Twilight Zone scribe Richard Matheson. ~ Matthew Tobey, All Movie Guide

Based on a story by Joseph Conrad, this 18th-century set drama is set shortly after the French Revolution and chronicles the exploits of a former counterrevolutionary pirate who befriends a mentally ill, naive young woman. Eventually his feelings of friendship turn to love and this in turn leads to tragedy when she falls in love with a French naval officer. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

La Guerre Secrete is divided into four separate vignettes, each scene representing a day in the life of international espionage agents. Stories involve a secret agent (Vittorio Gassman) who goes undercover as a kidnapper, an attempt to impede a Russian attack on two submarines, and an undercover agent confronting a traitor in the Berlin offices of the CIA. Linking the stories is Robert Ryan as a US Intelligence chief. Terence Young directed the English-language sequences, while Christian-Jacques and Carlo Lizzani handled the French and Italian sequences, respectively. German director Werner Klinger's name does not appear on the US credits of The Dirty Game, inasmuch as his scenes were cut from all American prints. Dirty Game sank without a trace on its initial release, only to pop up on television, intermittently, throughout the '70s. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Robert Morley is ideally cast as the legendary playwright, poet, and wit Oscar Wilde in this biographical look at the author's tumultuous life. While he was married to a woman named Constance (Phyllis Calvert), Wilde was primarily attracted to men, and at the height of his fame, he became involved with Lord Alfred Douglas (John Neville), the estranged son of the Marquis of Queensberry (Edward Chapman). The Marquis, who disliked Wilde, publicly referred to him as a "sodomite," and Wilde sued for libel. However, in the midst of the resultant trial, Sir Edward Carson (Ralph Richardson) badgered Wilde into admitting his homosexuality under oath; Wilde lost his libel suit, and was then successfully prosecuted for indecency, for which he served two years at hard labor. Wilde died a poor and emotionally shattered man in Paris a few years later. Oscar Wilde was produced at roughly the same time as The Trials of Oscar Wilde, in which Peter Finch played the title role. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

In this film based on an earlier German silent serial, a Swedish scientist (Gino Cervi) has invented a device which can alter the control of gravity. Soon after, Chinese spies intervene and try to swipe the machine, while the Swedish government sends help in the form of two agents (Lino Ventura, Carlos Thompson). ~ John Bush, All Movie Guide

Kathy Ferguson (Barbara Stanwyck) is a cynical newspaper columnist in San Francisco, handling women's advice -- by chance one day, the paper's city editor assigns her to cover the woman's angle on the arrival of a pair of L.A. police detectives, Capt. Manny Alidos (Royal Dano) and Lt. Bill Doyle (Sterling Hayden), on the hunt for a murder suspect known to be hiding somewhere in the city. They're both pretty button-down types and seem like fish-out-of-water in the more easy-going Frisco, and Kathy quickly clashes with them both, especially when her column appealing to the missing suspect as a woman yields serious dual results -- not only does Kathy boost her profile and readership, but the missing suspect makes contact and is ultimately brought in; in the process, Kathy goes from journalistic back-bencher to media star. That would be the end of the issue, except that Kathy and Bill have become attracted to each other amid their clashes, parries, and thrusts, and decide to get married -- she spurns the offer of a job in New York to move to Los Angeles and settle down to the life of a wife and homemaker. But that proves impossible -- Kathy quickly chafes at what she regards as the empty vacuous chatter of her fellow detective wives' lives and social interactions, and also her place in their pecking order as determined by their husbands' ranks and assignments (and Bill just doesn't rate high enough). Her own life suddenly cut off from career and ambition, and an ability to act on either, she becomes fixated on Bill's career and advancing it and him as a substitute. She contrives to cross paths socially with Alice Pope (Fay Wray), the wife of Inspector Tony Pope (Raymond Burr), who is both the head of an elite detective unit and the top man in her husband's division, and is soon not only getting Bill invited to parties with Pope and the police commissioner, but also cutting her husband's boss Manny Alidos and his wife Sara (Virginia Grey), to whom she's taken a special dislike, out of those same events.
It's not quite enough, however, and Kathy starts socializing on her own with Tony Pope, on Bill's behalf, and the two soon have their own relationship. Bill is still too much of a nice guy, and not careerist enough or assertive enough -- until she feigns distress at receiving poison-pen letters accusing her of having an affair with Pope, and blames Manny and Sara. This drives Bill to confront and assault Alidos, leading to a hearing in Pope's office where the chief of the division -- now very much beholden to Bill for Kathy's sake -- comes down on Bill's side. When the smoke clears, Manny is bounced back into uniform and Bill is made acting captain and put in charge of the homicide unit that Alidos formerly headed. Bill is on his way, and so is Kathy and Pope's relationship. But Pope proves to be a distressingly honorable and loyal man -- when his wife's health takes a turn for the worse, he decides to put in for retirement, and Kathy wants him to recommend Bill as his replacement. He considers it but decides that regardless of what he's done outside of his marriage, the department is too important to compromise the detective division, and that Bill just doesn't have what it takes to head it. Kathy is too deep in her strategy to back off, and also feels betrayed by Pope; now pushed over the edge, she contrives to threaten him with a gun, and is prepared to make good on her threat. Ironically enough, Bill may get his shot yet at heading the division, as he's head of homicide and takes personal charge of the biggest case the department has seen in years -- bringing in Tony Pope's killer. The only question is if and how he can put together the clues and pieces of the puzzle leading back to Kathy. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

In this dark drama, a young American is on his way to take his final vows as a priest when he encounters a troubled nightclub singer with a checkered past. He honestly wants to help her and soon falls for her and finds himself tempted by her seductive ways. But giving in to temptation could have more serious repercussions than the damnation of his immortal soul, as she is a murderess. The story was filmed in Paris. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

One of the finest and most troubling films to come out of Universal-International, The Sleeping City tried to emulate some of the cinéma vérité elements of The Naked City (which had been produced at Universal's facilities). The producers got the permission of the city of New York to shoot at Bellevue Hospital, and, in exchange, opened the movie with a disclaimer spoken by star Richard Conte, stepping out of character to point out that nothing like the story in this movie ever happened at Bellevue and offering tribute to the actual hospital and its staff. That's the last reassuring moment that one will find in this eerie crime drama -- in the first six minutes, a young doctor taking a break from work is shot in the head, and the police can't find a clue even as to a possible motive. Inspector Al Gordon (John Alexander) decides that he has to put some men on duty at the hospital, and one of them is Fred Rowan (Richard Conte), a detective with experience as an army medic, masquerading as an intern. What Rowan finds is a high-pressure world in which interns are hopelessly squeezed for time, sleep, energy, and -- most of all -- money, and walk a fine line on the edge of personal and professional disaster. His roommate, Steve Anderson (Alex Nicol), seems especially desperate. The only relief from the bleakness and tension, on a personal level, comes from the attentions of Ann Shelton (Coleen Gray), the ward nurse in traumatics, where Fred is assigned, and the good-natured needling of Pop Ware (Richard Taber), an elevator operator who likes to take an avuncular interest in the interns around him. But before he can get too far in his investigation, potential witnesses start dying around Rowan , and one of his friends at the hospital is threatened. Soon the whole scheme and the motives for the murders suddenly become clear, along with Rowan's earlier failure to spot the clue he needed. He also suddenly recognizes the involvement of the people closest to him at the hospital, but before the squad can move, he also finds his own life at risk. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

The Columbia mystery melodrama The Walls Came Tumbling Down is regarded in many circles as star Lee Bowman's finest hour-and-a-half. Bowman is cast as Winchellesque Broadway columnist Gilbert Archer, who insists upon investigating the death of an old friend, a priest. The police insist that the priest hanged himself, but Archer believes otherwise, and together with Boston socialite Patricia Foster (Marguerite Chapman) he begins to play detective -- though "play" is hardly the word. Key ingredients to the mystery are two rare Bibles and a painting of the fall of Jericho. The principal villainy comes at the grubby hands of Columbia contractees George Macready and Edgar Buchanan, while J. Edward Bromberg has a few amusing moments as a kooky art dealer. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this mystery, a detective and his partner are hired by a carnival psychic to help her find her long-lost sister who vanished a few years back. It is the partner who solves the mystery, but before she can tell her boss, she is killed. The detective is accused of the crime and arrested. He somehow avoids jail, but when he is found near yet another corpse, the police are convinced of his guilt. Fortunately, before he comes to trial, the gumshoe finds the real culprit and justice ensues. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide