Watch Port of New York For Free

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

Admirable film.

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

Yul Brynner (Paul) heads up a drug gang in New York that includes heavies William Challee (Leo) and Neville Brand (Ike). Scott Brady (Mickey) and Richard Rober (Jim) are on his case. Richard Rober should have been cast above Scott Brady, and trust a woman, Lynne Carter (Lili) to mess everything up at the end, eh! The film starts in that documentary style with a voice-over. It goes on a bit too much and the film gets bogged down and a bit slow with the arrival of entertainer Arthur Blake (Dolly). I lost track of what was going on for a while and then found myself watching people in the dark running about and fighting each other - whoa....what's going on? Who's who? I'm afraid that was the result of my mind wandering because the film got a bit boring.Anyway, Yul Brynner is the standout in the cast but it all seems to be quite a predictable story with a climax that could have been better. It seems as if some tension is building towards the end of the film, and then it's all over in a sudden. It's not a bad film, but neither is it particularly good.

The opium-stocked "S.S. Florentine" docks in New York City with cool blonde K.T. Stevens (as Toni Cardell) and a murder. Distraught, Ms. Stevens goes to drug-smuggling boss Yul Brynner (as Paul Vicola) to ask for more money. Getting no for an answer, and cast aside for sexual relations, Stevens decides to try to sell her naughty knowledge to Federal investigator Richard Rober (as Jim Flannery). Mr. Rober and young partner Scott Brady (as Mickey Waters) track dope to addicted nightclub comic Arthur Blake (as Dolly Carney). Dancer friend Lynne Carter (as Lili Long) tries to help Mr. Blake, who is made to squeal during withdrawal… Narrated by future news-reader Chet Huntley, "Port of New York" is a surprisingly good feature. The leading man is Rober, who channels William Holden well; if he hadn't met with misfortune, Rober might have had a successful TV crime drama. The fine supporting cast is highlighted by Blake's drug-addicted stand-up comic; he's the one introduced while entertaining patrons with his impersonation of Charles Laughton in "Mutiny on the Bounty" (1935). Noir photographer George E. Diskant excels. Today, the main attraction will by an early look at Mr. Brynner, who plays the villainous drug lord with most of his hair intact, and unshaven.******* Port of New York (11/28/49) Laslo Benedek ~ Richard Rober, Scott Brady, Yul Brynner, K.T. Stevens

This is a pretty routine crime drama involving narcotics in New York. The SS Florentine docks and unships a crate of medical dope but instead of dope there is nothing but sand in the crate. The purser has stolen it, with the complicity of one of the passengers, a Miss Toni Cardell. Two Treasury agents, Scott Brady and Richard Rober, latch on to the case and track the dope through a network of heavies and murderers led by Yul Brynner. They succeed with the help of the U. S. Coast Guard and at the cost of Brady's life.Right away, though, I had a slight problem in that nobody anywhere is named Miss Toni Cardell. It's the kind of echt-schiksa name that somebody might dream up because it sounded right, like "Ellie Arroway" in Carl Sagan's novel, "Contact." But just try to find a name like Toni Cardell in a phone book, especially in Shanghai. I dare you.Secondly, the crate carrying the dope is opened by customs agents. It's a big crate, the size of a wardrobe, and it's filled entirely with sand. A reasonable inference is that a LOT of dope is missing, yet when the box of narcotics is finally discovered in a locker at Grand Central Station, it's only big enough to contain, say, three dictionaries.Those, of course, are minor things. Yet this is a minor movie. It's a routine track-'em-down mystery with T-men putting themselves in danger by posing as somebody else. Scott Brady is okay. He's an Irishman with Burt Lancaster's habit of sticking out his jaw in a defiant scowl when he's angry. It's rather likable. His partner, Richard Rober, on the other hand, has practically nothing to offer, a bland, acceptably handsome contract player. He's the one who should have been knocked off early on, allowing Scott Brady to continue the chase.Best performance, hands down -- Yul Brynner with hair as the Vladimir Putin look-alike who heads the whole operation. What a background the guy had. A Jew from Sakhalin Island off the Siberian coast, a stint at the Sorbonne in Paris, a trapeze artist. "The King and I" brought him fame but left him socked into a domineering and unsubtle persona. Here, he gives his most earnest performance. He's suave, handsome, delicate even. And -- this being 1949, the year when the Cold War became an undeniable fact -- his Russian accent fits the temporal template. He's better here than he ever was later.But, taken as a whole, what we have here is an inexpensive Eagle Lion crime drama with self-sacrificing heroes and ruthless villains. Nice to see the Coast Guard in action. Even if, to pump up the action, the writers and Lazlo Benedict, the director, have Brynner shooting his snub-nosed revolver at an 83-footer armed with a 20 millimeter cannon on the bow.Diverting, yes, but not much new.

Port of New York finds Scott Brady and Richard Rober, a pair of Treasury agents on the trail of some heroin smugglers in one of the earliest films I know that seriously dealt with that subject. In an early role way before his movie stardom is Yul Brynner as the chief villain of the piece.This would be a most obscure film if it were not for the fact that it contains Yul Brynner's screen debut. At the time Brynner was 29 years old and working on and off Broadway and it would be another two years before his breakthrough part in Rodgers&Hammerstein's The King and I.For those who are used to the hyper-masculine Brynner in such films as The King and I, Taras Bulba, and The Ten Commandments, Port of New York is a radical departure from casting. Brynner plays it fey in this one, he's a most epicene, but very deadly crook. I have to say that when he came to Hollywood for good seven years later he never played a part like the one he has in Port of New York ever again in his career.Brady and Rober make a pair of stalwart government agents and K.T. Stevens is just fine as Brynner's luckless girlfriend. Best performance in the film is that of Arthur Blake who plays a nightclub comedian and another luckless individual who gets in way over his head in the rackets. Blake's performance is similar to the role Zero Mostel had in The Enforcer the following year.Port of New York was shot in New York and it contains shots of things long gone like an elevated train station at Canal Street. That familiar voice you hear narrating is that Chet Huntley before he teamed with David Brinkley to become NBC's nightly news anchors and rating's leaders in that field for years. You'll also see Neville Brand in a small role as one of Brynner's henchmen.Port of New York is not a great noir film, but entertaining enough and nothing the cast or crew have anything to be embarrassed about.