The movie also stars Rosanna Arquette, Alexandra Paul, Randy Brooks, Andy García, Tiny Lister, Wilfredo Hernandez, Vyto Ruginis, and James Avery.
It was released on April 25, 1986.
Tropes for the film:
- Abandoned Warehouse: A Hostage for MacGuffin trade takes place. The Big Bad is unaware that there are SWAT officers hiding in the rafters of the apparently empty warehouse.
- Cable-Car Action Sequence: The funicular version involving a gunfight with the Big Bad occurs at the end.
- Damsel in Distress: Sarah in the climax.
- Dumb Blonde: Sarah averts this throughout the film.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: both Scudder and Sarah, at the end they're a couple and have been sober and happy for a while.
- Elevator Action Sequence: An inclined elevator version occurs at the end with the climatic shoot-out taking place on funicular.
- Fanservice: Alexandra Paul as the not-at-all-Brainy Brunette Sunny has a fully frontal nude scene. And there's Rosanna Arquette's Sarah cosplaying as a schoolgirl while on the job.
- Fan disservice:Sarah propositioning Scudder while she's drunk and then throwing up on his crotch.
- Gory Discretion Shot: Sunny's murder by the villains while Scudder is pursuit, takes place offscreen with the camera only showing blood splattered over the inside of the rear window.
- Hostage for MacGuffin: Involving a woman with a Sawn-Off Shotgun duct-taped to her head, and Scudder threatening to burn up the drugs unless she's cut loose at once. This actually works (once he sets fire to a few kilos) but a Blast Out ensues anyway.
- Hooker with a Heart of Gold: Downplayed by Sarah...she's a good person, but not sweetness and light she holds him responsible for getting her friend and fellow call girl Sunny killed.
- Shout-Out: The title is from Naked City, which ended Once an Episode with The Narrator saying, "There are eight million stories in the naked city. This has been one of them."
- Title Drop: During the opening narration.
