The film begins with an unusual prologue, featuring Conte, to assure the audience that the story is "completely fictional" and did not take place at Bellevue or in New York City.

The prologue was inserted at the insistence of New York mayor William O'Dwyer, who felt that the script besmirched the reputation of the city-run hospital.

Rowan becomes involved with the attractive nurse Ann Sebastian and also becomes friendly with Pop Ware, a popular elevator operator.

"[2] Bruce Eder has compared the film to another of the "cinéma vérité-style" crime thrillers produced in the 1950s: "Universal made The Sleeping City as its own contribution to the cycle, directed by George Sherman.

The results weren't as stylistically striking as The Naked City, but [it] had an appeal all its own -- the location shots had a more polished and slightly more visually lyrical look than those of The Naked City, and if the music by Frank Skinner (who'd scored part of the Dassin movie) wasn't as ornate as that of Miklós Rózsa (who scored the Dassin movie's finale), it helped sustain the tension set up by the script.