September 30, 1958 - May 29, 1963
ABC Police Drama - 137 Episodes
Cast:
| Lt. Michael 'Mike' Parker: | Horace McMahon |
| Patrolman/Sgt. Frank Arcaro: | Harry Bellaver |
| Det. Adam Flint: | Paul Burke |
| Det. James 'Jimmy' Halloran: | James Franciscus |
| Libby: | Nancy Malone |
| Lt. Dan Muldoon: | John McIntire |
| Janet Halloran: | Suzanne Storrs |
| Narrator: | Paul Frees |
Naked City was one of American television's most innovative police shows,
and one of its most important and influential drama series. More character
anthology than police procedural, the series blended the urban policier a la
Dragnet with the urban pathos of the Studio One school of television drama,
offering a mix of action-adventure and Actors' Studio, car chases and
character studies, shoot-outs and sociology, all filmed with
arresting starkness on the streets of New York.
The series was inspired by the 1948 "semi-documentary" feature, The Naked City.
Naked City's first season on ABC presented 39 taut, noirish half-hours that mixed
character drama, suspense, and action. The characters for the series' two regular
detectives were carried over from the feature film: Lt. Dan Muldoon, the seasoned
veteran, and his idealistic young subordinate, Detective Jim Halloran. When creative
differences arose between McIntire and Leonard at mid-season, Muldoon was written
out of the series via a fiery car crash, and replaced as the 65th Precinct's father-figure by
crusty Lt. Mike Parker. The show's signature was its narrator, who introduced each
episode with the assurance that the series was not filmed in a studio, but "in the
streets and buildings of New York itself," and returned thirty minutes later to intone
the series' famous tag-line: "There are eight million stories in the Naked City.
This has been one of them."
Despite an Emmy nomination for Best Drama, Naked City's downbeat dramatics did not
generate adequate ratings, and it was canceled. Unlike other failed shows, however,
Naked City was not forgotten. In the fall of 1959 one of the show's former sponsors
urged producer Herbert Leonard to mount Naked City for the following season in hour-long
form. The sponsor's interest led ABC to finance the pilot, and in Fall 1960 Leonard was
at the helm of two hour-long prime-time drama series (the other being Route 66 at CBS).
Click HERE for information about the Naked City themes.
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Episode Guides
By Stephen and Diane Albert
Naked City
From The Museum of Broadcast Communications
Naked City
By Heather Henderson
Naked City
From TV.com
These links were last tested February 2005.
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