Entertainment

DARK STREETS

THE noirish musical “Dark Streets” is supposed to take place in the 1930s, but its self-conscious details reminded me more of that weirdly nostalgic period in the mid-1970s when every third restaurant in America was named “Gatsby’s.”

The blues and jazz numbers aren’t bad, but they’re awkwardly shot and poorly integrated with a storyline that director Rachel Samuels (“The Suicide Club”) presents in such an obfuscating manner that 86 minutes fly by like three hours.

The storyline? Club owner Chaz (Gabriel Mann) is trying to unravel the mystery surrounding the death of his father, who ran the electric company in their generic big city along with his uncle. Bijou Phillips and Izabella Miko play the lip-synching femme fatales.

I love musicals, but I’d be hard-pressed to recommend this curiosity, sort of a shoestring version of Francis Ford Coppola’s “The Cotton Club.”

Running time: 86 minutes. Rated R (sex,drugs, violence). At the Empire and the Loews Village.