Raymond Borde and Etienne Chaumeton writing in "A Panorama of American Film Noir 1941–1953" comments that director Siodmak had better noir efforts but the film does have one lasting image, "Siodmak will rediscover neither the brilliance of "The Killers" nor the 'finish' of "Criss Cross" in the over-rushed, too uneven, "Cry of the City": for all that, one will remember the figure of a forever famished masseuse, a real 'phallic woman' who, with a flick of the wrists, has a 'tough guy' at her mercy".