Fear City (1984) Times Square Noir

"Bad Guy kills beautiful women, Bad Guy BAD, bad guy dead."

Directed by Abel Ferrara (Ms..45, Bad Lieutenant). 

Written by Nicholas St. John (The King of New York, Ms..45). Cinematography by James Lemmo (Ms..45). Music by Dick Halligan

The film Stars Tom Berenger (Looking for Mr. Goodbar, Someone To Watch Over Me) as Matt Rossi, Billy Dee Williams (Bryan's Song) as Detective Al Wheeler, Jack Scalia as Nicky Parzeno, Melanie Griffith (Night Moves, Drowning Pool, Body Double, Something Wild, Mulholland Falls) as Loretta, Michael V. Gazzo as Mike, Rossano Brazzi (The Italian Job) as Carmine, Rae Dawn Chong (Quest For Fire)as Leila, Janet Julian as Ruby, John Foster as Pazzo, María Conchita as "Silver," Joe Santos (Flesh & Lace, The Rockford Files TV) as Frank, Ola Ray as "Honey, " Tracy Griffith as Sandra Cook, Emilia Crow as Bibi (as Emilia Lesniak), Jan Murray (Who Killed Teddy Bear) as Lou Goldstein, and Daniel Faraldo as Sanchez.

Jack Scalia as Nicky Parzeno

Tom Berenger as Matt Rossi

Melanie Griffith as Loretta

Billy Dee Williams as Detective Al Wheeler

Joe Santos as Frank 

Michael V. Gazzo as Mike

Rae Dawn Chong as Leila

Jan Murray as Lou Goldstein

Manhattan. Midtown. Night. An aerial view. 

Like a nighthawk we glide East to West. Past the Chrysler Building past the Pan Am roof top heliport. Over the canyons of Madison, 5th, 6th, to the big bright "X" where Broadway crosses 7th. 

6th Avenue

The big "X " Times Square

Times Square a 24/7 year round adult carnival with quite unusual rides. 

We're plopped down in a sea of glowing neon, lunatic marquee lights, stores in the "going out of business" business. grindhouse theaters, live nude girls, peepshows, and arcades. This is what Times Square evolved into after I left the scene. It was right at the moment, in the mid 1970s when porn was briefly chic. 

The eye catching iconic theater in North Times Square for this era was The Pussycat, when the Trans-Lux West Theatre closed it reopened officially as the Grand Pussycat Cinema in 1981 My Times Square was "BP" before Pussycat, lol.

The first time I ever saw The Pussycat in Times Square was in a film, I, The Jury (1982). I was about 2,500 West of Times Square in Missoula, Montana. 

Armand Assante played Mike Hammer a bit off type. His office looked like it was on the second or third floor in the building with the Latin Quarter Nightclub that stood on the North end of Times Square directly opposite the Times building on the South end. It also housed, a block wide Playland and the Majestic Ballroom, (both had entrances on Broadway and 7th Ave). I remember saying to myself "I don't remember that, that's new." Mike Hammers office looked Southwest out over Broadway to the Pussycat on the other side.

Anyway, we follow Nicky and ex boxer Matt into the Pussycat. 

We watch them watch Loretta, a long haired, ex junkie stripper in a sequined blue gown with a waist high slit dancing on a neon blue stage. 

While Loretta dances we get quick cuts to another dancer being accosted, beaten, and cut. 

Nicky and Matt (theatrical agents) are bracing Mike the owner for the money he owes them. Loretta is their client, Mike's biggest draw, and also Matt's old gal pal. When her set is dome,  Loretta goes backstage to her dressing room. Waiting is her lesbian lover Leila. 

When Nicky and Matt are done with Mike, Matt heads back downstairs to the backstage dressing rooms to see Loretta. 

When he slowly opens the door to surprise her, he finds her and Leila making out. He closes the door and walks off. 

When Nicky and Matt find out the next day about the attack on one of their girls they think their rival Lou Goldstein is behind it. Al Wheeler is the police detective assigned to the case and he believes that Nicky and Matt are playing dumb, and know more about what is going on than they let on. 

As more of Nicky and Matt's girls get maimed and some killed, Matt goes and personally threatens Goldstein. Goldstein swears he has nothing to do with it.

Matt believes Goldstein and things cool off between the gangs when one of Goldstein's girls also is murdered. The club owners form a sort of protection association with each club agreeing to kick in $2,500 for muscle escorts and limos to transport the girls.

Leila becomes another victim, and when she dies Loretta just can't handle it goes looking for a fix. She wants a ticket out the world. 

Meanwhile at the Metropole Nicky and club owner Frank are watching a customer who Nicky saw with a knife. They hatch a plan to lure the guy with the knife, using one of the dancers into the kitchen. 

They jump him and they almost lose control of it until Matt runs into the kitchen to put him away. It's the wrong guy. A tourist who just got into town. That is not good for business.

They all get busted, by the police for assault. Detective Al Wheeler shows up, too, because of his belief that maiming's and killings are still gang related. 

<possible spoiler>

The killer, it turns, out is your alienated and obsessed nut job. He's a writer, skilled in anatomy, and Martial Arts. He writes done the details of his deeds in a leather bound diary with the title "Fear City" written in blood. This is really not a spoiler because Abel Ferrara reveals him to us almost from the get go. 

When he decapitates the next dancer as she walks around a corner. the Times Square strip club business really starts dropping off because the best dancers wont work. 

<end spoiler>

Noirsville

Of course we get a Martial Arts expert vs. Professional boxer in a final Noir denouement in a trash strewn back alley arena, nice touch but you know it's coming. Abel Ferrara throws in some Catholic religious iconography, the saints, crosses, offering candles, I haven't seen all of his films but the one's I have seen do have it. It may be a signature feature.  This film clicks right along as an entertainment, with a large ensemble cast and everybody's more or less believable. For me the location shots are the big bonus. And it's a lot of Times Square, for New York "film school Transitional Noir it's ground zero. 

Just like The Bunker Hill - Main Street L.A. was ground zero for Hollywood Classic Noir. Once those neighborhoods are gone they're never coming back. It gave Classic Noir its grit. The location shots are  what makes the few known Grindhouse Exploitation and Sexploitation Noir that have survived worth seeking out. They have an almost "archival" value for they're often guerilla style, on location filmmaking. Those cameras give you a true window back. Of course a lot of the stories are terrible, they function like bridges to the Visual treasures. But every so often almost everything clicks and those shoestring filmmakers would insert and then weave into their stories sequences that give off a very Twilight Zone-ish vibe. 

A good example of the above in the Classic Noir era may be that ballerina sequence in Stanley Kubrick's Killers Kiss, you wonder if it was originally part of something else entirely. Another 52nd Street set Classic Era Noir The Striptease Murder Case has footage of the 52nd St. Jazz Clubs with their bands and the lounge strippers that replaced old burlesque houses in Times Square. There's another Transitional Noir, I can't remember it's name that has a rare look inside what looks like a large Harlem ballroom, I don't know if it's the Savoy or something else. It's got some distinctive decorations along the tops of it's walls where they meet the ceiling. Somebody out there may recognize the place it could even be the basement of a Harlem church. Others, show you what the old style incandescent bulb lit subway and el stations looked like with real New Yorkers as unknowing extras. You get the real Manhattan, with it's bridges, the Lower East Side's old "Gasoline Alley," The Village, Harlem, all spiraling inwards towards Times Square.   

Fear City is great if you want to get a Visual Noir fix of the last days of old gritty Times Square. 

The story though is predictable with characters we've all seen before, with just slightly different spins on them so it's an average film in that respect. Look at it like all the Classic Hollywood, just average "B" Noir that were entertaining enough.  

I'm surprised it's not more well known among Neo Noir enthusiasts. It's entertaining and the Times Square location shots are great. No masterpiece but a good example of 1980s Neo Noir. Watchable 7/10.