The Naked City

The Naked City (Criterion #380).
1948 Universal Pictures.
Starring: Barry Fitzgerald, Howard Duff, Dorothy Hart, Don Taylor, Frank Conroy, Ted de Corsia
Director: Jules Dassin
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This film won an Academy Award for Best Cinematography (William H. Daniels), and for Best Film Editing (Paul Weatherwax).

One late night in the Big Apple, a former model named Jean Dexter is murdered when two men use chloroform on her, and leave her to drown in her bathtub. Then, one of the killers is killed by his partner and dumped into the East River when he drunkenly shows remorse for his actions. Also, Jean seemed to have been a victim of burglary, as a lot of jewelry she supposedly owned has turned up missing.

Homicide detective Lt. Dan Muldoon (Fitzgerald) and his rookie partner Jimmy Halloran (Taylor) are assigned to the case. Over the next six days, they investigate Jean Dexter's murder, tracing back to the last eighteen months of her life, and finding out that Dexter led a wild life, with plenty of lovers and social gatherings, and as the detectives probe deeper into the case, they discover a lot of interlocking reasons as to why at least three men might have wanted Jean dead. Eventually, a man named Frank Niles (Duff) is taken into custody for the jewelry theft, but he is not responsible for Jean's death. Duff initially lied about everything when questioned at first, including his relationship with model Ruth Morrison (Hart), but eventually confesses that he knows who killed Jean. That somebody is former wrestler turned criminal Willie Garzah (de Corsia), a man with a penchant for harmonica who also slaughtered his accomplice, Peter Backalis (Walter Burke). Garzah leads the police on a chase through Manhattan after assaulting Halloran (who tried to lure the murderer into a trap), which comes to a bloody end on the Williamsburg Bridge.

Highly recommended piece of film noir, and yes, there are eight million stories in the naked city.