While The City Sleeps

Ask mother says the message scrawled in lipstick at a murder scene by an unknown serial killer who preys on women. It's a sensational story -- if it bleeds, it leads -- and a news conglomerate offers a big promotion to the high-level company exec who solves the case. So begins the wheeling, dealing and backstabbing of the competing media hotshots as they vie to unmask the so-called Lipstick Killer. Fritz Lang (The Big Heat), whose early-career expressionist works would strongly influence the film-noir genre, directs this stylistically understated noir that features an abundance of starpower rare for the genre: Dana Andrews, Rhonda Fleming, George Sanders, Thomas Mitchell, Vincent Price, Ida Lupino and other notables.

• crime
• drama