Richie-67-485852 I have named this movie which is titled The Street With No Name to Gotcha street because that is what this movie will and does do. It gets you as in quality entertainment. One of my favorite premise in movies is the "cat & mouse" ploy where someone is after someone else but not sure who and the audience is let on what is going on before the characters are thus suspense is built up, sides are chosen and we start rooting for the hero to not only do well but that the bad guy gets his. Commepuppance is another favorite of mine too and if done correctly pays off by giving the viewer a satisfying conclusion to the story line. That is at work as well and delivers quite nicely. Yes, this movie is from the forties and is dated but fun none the less to see how criminals and police used what they had to do their jobs. Back then, the police were just getting organized which meant that criminals could pull one job after another and not risk getting caught until they did. It was like an arms race where one side develops an edge and the other side catches up and surpasses that edge and on and on. In this movie, that theme is at work. One side outsmarts the other who outsmarts that other etc. But as in all human nature dramas, the one who pushes the limit on anything gets the rude awakening. Its along the lines of the famous cliché "I never met a string of luck that didn't wear out" and here we see it come true. Richard Widmark is a pleasure to watch along with a fine supporting cast. Imagine going to see this in the local theater along with another movie, a newsreel and perhaps a cartoon with a "bag" of popcorn, soda and a goody. Add a date or a friend and you have a nice night out and it cost you under a dollar. Today, if you love the classics, enjoy this at home, with a favorite snack (licorice?) and let the movie have its way with you right to the end.

James Hitchcock "The Street with No Name" can be seen as a follow-up to "The House on 92nd Street" from three years earlier. Both use a semi-documentary style, were loosely based on actual events and were made with the deliberate purpose of highlighting the work of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. One character, FBI Inspector George A. Briggs played by Lloyd Nolan, appears in both films. "The House on 92nd Street", made in 1945 shortly after the end of hostilities, deals with the fight against Nazi espionage and subversion in wartime, whereas the later movie deals with the FBI's efforts to combat the post-war revival of what J. Edgar Hoover called "organized gangsterism".The action is set in the fictional "Center City", which could represent any major American city, although the film was actually shot in Los Angeles. It tells the story of an undercover FBI agent, Gene Cordell, who infiltrates a ruthless crime gang who have carried out a series of robberies in which two people have been killed. Cordell adopts the persona of "George Manly", a boxer and criminal, and is recruited into the gang by its leader, Alec Stiles.Seven years later the film was remade as "House of Bamboo" which, rather oddly, transferred the action to Japan although most of the main characters, and all the gangsters, remained American. The two movies had the same scriptwriter, Harry Kleiner, although they were made by different directors, William Keighley here and Samuel Fuller in the later film. Unusually for a crime drama from the fifties, Fuller made "House of Bamboo" in colour, whereas "Street with No Name" is made in the standard black-and-white film noir style. Kleiner added a major female character to "House of Bamboo" by giving Eddie (the equivalent character in that film to Cordell) a Japanese girlfriend, but the cast here are nearly all male. (Film noir tended to be a male-dominated genre, with women confined to secondary roles, although there were occasional exceptions such as "Gilda").Although "House of Bamboo" is visually attractive, I think that "Street with No Name" is the better film. The later film's exotic setting struck me as something of a gimmick, whereas here Keighley's photography of the "Skid Row" district of Center City, with its cheap flophouses, bars, amusement arcades and boxing gyms, achieves a certain gritty authenticity. There is a particularly strong performance from Richard Widmark as the dangerous, amoral Stiles. Widmark was later to appear in one of the all-time great films noirs, Fuller's New York-set "Pickup on South Street", which has a similar gritty look. I would not rate "Street with No Name" as highly as "Pickup" which has a more original storyline and a greater moral complexity; "Street with No Name", by contrast, tells a more straightforward, conventional "good guys against bad guys" tale of cops and robbers. It does, however, retain some points of interest even today. 6/10

jpdoherty "THE STREET WHERE CRIME FLOURISHES IS THE STREET THAT EXTENDS RIGHT ACROSS America. IT IS THE STREET WITH NO NAME............"J.Edgar Hoover.From the vaults of 20th. Century Fox comes this excellent crime thriller THE STREET WITH NO NAME. Produced for the studio in 1948 by Samuel G.Engel it was directed with great care to detail and atmosphere by William Keighley. Crisply photographed by master cinematographer Joe MacDonald, it was beautifully written for the screen by Harry Kleiner and was filmed by Fox in their customary forties semi-documentary style that they had started producing with great success in 1945 with "The House On 92nd Street".Richard Widmark is Alec Stiles. The vicious over dressed leader of a gang of hoodlums who are terrorizing the city with their well planned robberies and killings. Determined to outwit and bring them down the FBI, under Inspector Briggs (Lloyd Nolan), trains an undercover agent Gene Cordell (Mark Stevens) to infiltrate the gang to find out just how and from who they are getting their information prior to every job they undertake. After gaining Stiles' confidence and becoming a trusted gang member Cordell's life is put in grave danger when the mysterious informer he seeks exposes him to Stiles. The picture ends with an exciting and action filled finale in a well staged shootout between the gang and FBI agents.The acting is good throughout. Mark Stevens heads a nicely chosen cast as the undercover agent. Stevens, an actor who had some degree of success was a mildly appealing leading man in the forties and fifties. After many bit parts billed under his real name of Stephen Richards ("Objective Burma"/"Pride Of The Marines") he changed his name and with the exception of "Cry Vengeance" (1954) and "Timetable" (1956) - which he also directed - appeared in his fair share of indifferent movies. THE STREET WITH NO NAME was one of his better and more memorable efforts. Mark Stevens died in 1977. Also good to watch is Lloyd Nolan. Here repeating his role as the FBI's Inspector Briggs from "House On 92nd Street" and there's a nice contribution too from John McIntire as Steven's fellow undercover agent. But there is no doubt the picture belongs to Richard Widmark. This was the actor's second movie after his blistering nominated debut performance the previous year in "Kiss Of Death" Here as Stiles he is just as mean but without the Tommy Udo snigger. Two years later Widmark would give what is arguably his greatest performance when he played the racist young thug in "No Way Out" (1950).As was usual with Fox during this period for this type of picture there is no music score except for a robust march theme heard over the opening and closing credits. Nevertheless THE STREET WITH NO NAME remains a memorable noir and a classic crime thriller.In 1955 Fox remade the picture as "House Of Bamboo". This was a most unfortunate decision. Its noir antecedents were utterly lost in the totally unsuitable Cinemascope/colour presentation. Moreover, its daft and questionable decision to relocate the entire story to a Tokyo setting makes one wonder what sort of brainstorm Fox's head of production was going through at the time and did he even see the original. Hmmm!

edwagreen A definite taut thriller where both the good guys and the bad guys have infiltrated each other's group.Lloyd Nolan takes a similar role as an FBI agent, this is what he did in "The House on 92nd Street." Wasn't he Inspector Briggs there as well? The music, especially at the beginning of the film, sounded like it came from '92nd Street' too.As always, Richard Widmark was terrific as the villain. While he lacks the total insanity in other gangster films, he is as sharp, cunning and miserable as ever. He always sustained that low key villain trademark voice in these sort of films.Interesting to see that Mark Stevens got top billing in the film over Widmark. I guess that has to always show that good triumphs over evil.The picture expertly shows technology that existed in crime work after World War 11.