While the City Sleeps

While the City Sleeps (1928)

NOW! The man of 1,000 faces in a picture with 1,000 THRILLS!

A tough New York cop is determined to bring down a crook who has always managed to provide an alibi for the crimes he's been accused of, even though the detective knows he's guilty of committing them.

Date of release
1928-02-15
TMDB
6.3 / 10 (10)
Runtime
1h 6m
Genres
Drama, Crime
Director
Jack Conway

Casting

Interesting facts

While the City Sleeps is a 1928 American synchronized sound crime drama film about a tough New York City police detective, played by Lon Chaney, out to catch a murdering gangster. While the film has no audible dialog, it was released with a synchronized musical score with sound effects using the sound-on-film Western Electric Sound System process. The film was directed by Jack Conway, written by Andrew Percival Younger, and co-starred Anita Page, Carroll Nye, Wheeler Oakman, and Mae Busch.

Production

Chaney personally chose Anita Page as the leading lady, after seeing the rushes for Our Dancing Daughters (1928), in which she co-starred. By that time, Page was preparing for Bellamy Trial (1929), but she was reassigned to appear in While the City Sleeps. About working with Chaney, Page stated in a 2007 interview:

"Before filming began, Lon talked to me about make-up and explained the action scenes to me. Finally, he gave me one last bit of advice: ‘Never act purely on impulse in important matters,’ he said. ‘Think things over carefully. Then, when you’re sure that you’re right, go ahead. And don’t let anything swerve you from that decision.’"

Los Angeles City Hall, which opened in April 1928, appears on film for perhaps the first time in the background of a few rooftop scenes, especially in the climactic rooftop gun battle.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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