THE STREET WITH NO NAME

New Zealand Listener, Volume 19, Issue 490, 12 November 1948, Page 24

THE STREET WITH NO NAME

(20th Century-Fox) ~RIME may not pay in the United States, but it must be an expensive business convincing criminals of the truth of that old adage if The Street With No Name is as a true picture of the

daily routine of the FBI as it purports to be. Like Call Northside 777 and Naked City (both much better films), it is an example of the semi-document-ary technique which is becoming increasingly popular with some Hollywood directors, The story, we are told in the credits, has been adapted from FBI files and played in part by FBI officers. Most filmgoers, however, will find it indistinguishable from the old: run-of-the-mill gangster film, except for those passages in which Mr. J. Edgar Hoover does some strenuous long-distance log-rolling. The Chief of the Federal Bureau is represented in the field by Lloyd Nolan and Mark Stevens (the G-men’s Dana Andrews), both of whom handle their parts fairly well, considering the conventional kind of parts they are. I was more interested in the performance of Richard Widmark, as a cold-eyed, frogmouthed young tough who came fairly close to proving that crime did pay. Vice, of course, is much more interesting than virtue, but what crusaders like Mr. Hoover overlook is that the average man does not normally identify himself with the big battalions.