The Naked Street

The combination of Anthony Quinn, Anne Bancroft, Peter Graves, and Farley Granger in a crime thriller scanned as a “can’t miss” proposition. Or, at least, one that would be entertaining as popcorn-thriller junk food. The Naked Street found a way to waste this tony cast on a dull melodrama with crime thriller garnishes.

Quinn stars as a crime lord who gets his unwed pregnant sister (Bancroft) out of social embarrassment, getting the father (Granger) of her baby out of jail, getting them married, and setting them up on the straight-and-narrow. Naturally, the playing house ideal Bancroft and Granger have set-up crumbles to pieces in short order, and Granger is back to his life of sex, booze, and grifting. Graves appears as the reporter who narrates the entire story.

Buried within that narrative is some solid material to work with, but The Naked Street fumbles it consistently. Instead of embracing some of the more radical and purple prose-like dialog and narrative twists, tilting head-first into these ludicrous story beats, The Naked Street pulls back into bland moralizing. Quinn goes typically overboard, Bancroft quakes with vulnerability, Graves is dependably sturdy, and Granger is out of his depth here playing something outside of his sensitive pretty boy. Skip it.