Set in London's Soho district, Night and the City provided Richard Widmark with one of his best roles as Harry Fabian, a creative small-time crook who becomes involved with the big boys when he concocts a scheme to corner London's vicious wrestling racket. "The London of Night and the City has no temporal or geographical location; it is Thompson's 'city of dreadful night,' Warshow's 'dark, sad city of the imagination'....The principal recurring image...is of Harry Fabian...as he runs through dark streets in a futile attempt to evade his pursuers. He is a pariah in his own society, the underworld, a man with a price on his head which makes even former friends betray him....It is easy to see Fabian as the archetypal modern man...." (Colin McArthur, Underworld U.S.A.)