The film opens with a vicious killer attacking an innocent woman in her apartment. The scene switches over to the old man, Amos Kyne, news media mogul, who is on his death bed talking to Edward Mobley, the TV anchorman for Kyne Inc. The discussion entails what will happen to the media empire after Kyne's death with Mobley turning the top job down more than once. Mobley informs the old man that he is about to go on the air live in four minutes and walks over to a TV set in the room and turns it on, still talking to the old man, who doesn’t answer. Mobley looks back and sees Kyne slumped over dead. After Kyne's death, the corporation goes to his son, Walter Kyne, who his father resented and has never allowed into the business. Due to his lack of knowledge, and not wanting to take on all the work at the top by himself, Walter Kyne decides to create a new second-in-command position of Executive Director. He challenges the men in charge of Kyne's three divisions—wire-service chief Mark Loving, newspaper chief Jon Day Griffith, and television chief "Honest" Harry Kritzer —to solve the crime and catch the serial killer who has been dubbed the "Lipstick Killer": whoever can do it will get the new job. The job is a very lucrative prize, and in order to secure it, Griffith attempts to ally with Mobley, who doesn't want to get involve. Loving manipulates star writer Mildred Donner to cozy up to and get information out of Mobley. Kritzer uses a different method: he is having a secret affair with Walter Kyne's wife, Dorothy, and uses her as his confidante and to sweet-talk her husband in his behalf. To help conceal the affair, Dorothy has rented an apartment that coincidentally happens to be adjacent to that of Loving's secretary, Nancy Liggett. Mobley becomes engaged to Nancy Liggett and receives inside information from his police friend, Lt. Kaufman. After a second murder, the two men devise a plan to set a trap by using Nancy as the bait, with Mobley taunting the Lipstick Killer on TV in order to bring him out into the open. Taking the bait, the Lipstick Killer follows Nancy to her apartment to attack her, but fails to gain entrance. Mrs. Kyne happens to arrive just then and enters her apartment. The killer takes advantage of the open door and succeeds in attacking her. She fights him off and runs screaming to Nancy’s apartment. The killer runs away, and a chase unfolds until the police catch him. Through Kaufman, Mobley provides the scoop to Griffith, who makes sure to release it first in an extra-edition newspaper and only then on the Kyne wire service, but still ahead of any competitors. In all the commotion, Dorothy is recognized at the secret apartment and the adulterous affair is exposed. "Honest" Harry Kritzer wins the promotion because of the threat of blackmail against Kyne. As Mobley and Griffith discuss the aftermath of these events in a bar, Mobley announces that he has resigned. Kyne comes in and Mobley tells him what he thinks of him. The movie ends with Mobley and Nancy having gotten married in Florida, and learning in a local paper of an unexpected shakeup in the Kyne organization. Kritzer is out, the promotion has gone to Mitchell—and Mobley is to be promoted in turn to replace him. The happy couple kiss, ignoring a ringing telephone.
The film was based on the Charles Einstein novel Bloody Spur which had been optioned by the producer Bert Fiedlob. The script was originally known as News is Made at Night. It was made for United Artists. The city in the film is supposed to be New York, but the film was shot in Los Angeles. In so doing, they used the Pacific ElectricBelmont trolley tunnel under downtown LA and interurban cars with steps and trolley poles to represent the heavyweight cars of the New York City Subway rolling stock, which are drastically different in appearance. Several props—some of which featured a large K in a circle—were recycled from Citizen Kane, which RKO had made 15 years earlier, and may have prompted the use of the name "Kyne." The film was reportedly sold outright to RKO for a profit of $500,000.
Reception
On its release, film critic Abe Weiler liked the film, especially the acting. He wrote: "Since it is full of sound and fury, murder, sacred and profane love and a fair quota of intramural intrigue, a viewer is left wondering if the tycoons of the giant Kyne publishing combine ever bother to cover such mundane stories as the weather. But while this journalistic jamboree is more flamboyant than probable, a tight and sophisticated script by Casey Robinson and a clutch of professional performances make While the City Sleeps a diverting and workmanlike fiction." Decades after the film's release, it continues to attract critical attention. In 1998, Jonathan Rosenbaum of the Chicago Reader included the film in his unranked list of the best American films not included on the AFI Top 100. Time Outfilm reviews wrote of the film, "Lang makes inspired use of glass-walled offices, where all is seen and nothing revealed, and traces explicit parallels between Andrews and the murderer. Lang's most underrated movie." Emanuel Levy wrote in 2019, "One of Fritz Lang’s best noir crime films of the 1950s, 'While the City Sleeps' is significant film in anticipating future trends of the genre."
Home media
Unavailable on home video for many years following a VHS release in the 1990s, in 2010 While the City Sleeps became available on DVD in the UK by Exposure Cinema. In 2011 it was released in the U.S. on DVD-R by the Warner Archive Collection. Internet review site DVD Beaver compared these releases, citing the Exposure release as superior due to the Warner Archive release being "Single-layered and significantly softer. It also has some brightness boosting." The reviewer, Gary Tooze, also states that "There are no extras, not even the trailer that is available on Exposure disc". The Exposure Cinema release is open-matte, while the Warner Archive release is in Superscope. Warner Archive released a region-free Blu-ray on March 13, 2018, about which Tooze concludes, "I love the film, but the HD - superior in quality - is a part of an underwhelming package - yet we must own it with no signs of a more complete Blu-ray release in the future, unless it comes from the UK or France."
