My uncle worked as an electrician on Naked City and my father was friendly with the very talented Paul Burke (Adam Flint). Watching some episodes on Image's DVD set, it struck me how bizarre and outre Naked City really was. I hadn't seen the show since I was a boy. I remembered the fantastic photography, the crisp, beautifully lit black & white compositions and the documentarian style of the cinematography. There was an amazing power in the way the photographers captured the gritty, grimy, gloomy city streets filled with crumbling tenements and garish storefronts, made all the more depressive by the black & white camera-work. (When they shot street scenes, you could see people gathering in the background, staring into the camera.) Instead of a realistic police procedural, NC's overly dramatic scripts, oddball characters and off-Broadway theatrical dialogue came close to surrealism. It's great to see at least a few episodes on DVD.
Review of Naked City
