Off hours, he hangs around a strip club called The Silver Frolics on Wabash Avenue to see, both on stage and backstage, headliner Mala Powers. That relationship is a rocky as his marriage, and she's as unhappy with her lot as he with his `Whaddaya want me to do? Crawl into a deep freeze?' she taunts him during yet another breakup . Then Young heads to the precinct for the graveyard shift, riding in a prowl car with a new partner he's never met before Chill Wills, who also plays the unseen `Voice of the City' . During Young's nocturnal tour he meets up again and again with the various players in the plot. There's rich, crooked lawyer Edward Arnold, who blackmails him into burglarizing some incriminating papers; his two-timing wife, Marie Windsor; former magician turned criminal William Talman; his own brother Ron Hagerthy who's now Talman's apprentice; his pop Otto Hulett , a police veteran; and a `mechanical man' Gregg Warren who entertains passersby in the Silver Frolics' window.Some of the ties among the characters are up front, others furtive, to be doled out as the plots thicken. By the end Poverty Row having learned the lessons MGM taught a couple of decades earlier in the titles cited above , there's tragedy and heartache, reappraisals and reconciliations. There's even a character who vanishes as mysteriously as he materialized – a whiff of the supernatural which curiously fails to leave any influence on the way the stories unfold.The City That Never Sleeps shows the right breadth for a big, urban story – from Arnold's moderne penthouse to Young's middle-class flat to the raffish alleys running off Wabash Avenue. Director of photography John Russell later to film Psycho helps Auer out with some crafty touches a telephone dial glowing from a flashlight shone upon it comes to mind . It's not a haunting movie, but it's a satisfying one – a title that did Republic Pictures proud.

Arnold. Young is basically acting like a go-between between Arnold and the police, tipping the lawyer off about current investigations. He does get well paid for this, but he has to deal with Arnold's right hand man William Talman, who is not to be trusted. Young does not like Talman's cultivating Young's younger brother - possibly turning him into a complete criminal. He does not realize that Talman is also working in cahoots with Arnold's trophy wife Marie Windsor to get the upper hand over the lawyer. Young's own behavior is not really liked by his father, an honest old style cop who is regarded as a hero by the department.You can see that the situation is going to lead to disaster. Young is working an evening shift, and his partner is unable to show up. An unknown Police Sergeant Chill Wills takes the partner's place, and the two go around the night world of the city. And while they do so, both are unaware of the explosions about to rend apart the worlds of Arnold, Windsor, and Talman - and dragging in Young's younger brother.Some things to watch in the film: Talman having shot someone is aware that the only "witness" is a figure in a window. Is it a mechanical man or a real witness? Talman has to spend hours watching, and to see if the figure remains "mechanical" or not.See also the sequence where Young chases Talman along a deserted set of elevated train tracks through Chicago. It is a tense and exciting sequence.Finally, note the appearance in his first movie role according to this board of comedian Tom Poston as a police officer, who gets involved in a situation that is far from amusing. It's an odd first role for such a funny figure to have played at all.

Johnny. When I first came to this town I was gonna be... oh there were a lotta things I was gonna be- become famous. But Chicago's the big melting pot, and I got melted but good".And there are also the throw-away lines in the bar: Waitress to Bartender: "Two Old Fashions- no ice, no water, no sugar, no grenadine". "City That Never Sleeps" has a light step and has so many quirky little characters that you might wonder who the story is about. The film does focus on certain characters to make its point, is sometimes great to look at for its night-lit location photography and has some nice noir humor. Gig Young has the unflappable charm and bon vivant attitude that almost gets in the way of his disillusioned cop Johnny Kelly. Kelly is the ultimate Everyman who has become a cop because his father wanted him to, and whose wife unwittingly emasculates him because she earns more money that he. All in all, "City That Never Sleeps" is worth catching for its noir look and some good performances.