• Where the Sidewalk Ends

6/12/24 (Wed)

Otto Preminger’s 1950 noir has a great premise but fairly standard execution. A cop named Dixon, who has struggled to separate himself from his father’s criminal past, has been warned by his superiors to rein in his rough treatment of suspects. He has his eyes on a suspicious gangster named Scalise, who had escaped a murder rap several years earlier. When a man turns up dead at a floating crap game run by the gangster, evidence seems to point to one of the players, Kenneth Paine, given his previous violent behavior against both his female companion and the dead man. Dixon, however, is convinced that the true culprit is Scalise.

His subsequent interrogation of Paine goes awry when the suspect lashes out at him. In defending himself, Dixon accidentally kills the man. Panicking, he manages to sneak the body out and dump it in the river. When the body is found, the police rely on circumstantial evidence to arrest a cab driver, the father of the dead man’s much-abused female companion. Dixon’s guilt at implicating an innocent man is worsened by the fact that he has fallen for the daughter. This becomes a crippling psychological burden, driving him more than ever to seek to pin down Scalise. He arranges a meeting with Scalise fully expecting to get himself killed, which will at least put the criminal in jail. But things work out differently.

The film reunites Preminger’s Laura stars Dana Andrews and Gene Tierney, both of whom show the same limited acting range evident in the earlier film. The detective’s mental torment is potentially a compelling theme, but Andrews just doesn’t have it in him to take it to that level. Those actors and Tom Tully as the taxi driver seemed to be reading their lines rather than feeling them. Gary Merrill gives a rather campy take on Scalise, but Karl Malden, Bert Freed and others have a more natural feel.

The film benefits from a typically literate script by Ben Hecht. The upper-class setting of Laura allowed for wittier and more quotable dialogue, but Hecht keeps things realistic here. Some questionable plot developments are smoothed over by the swift and seamless action, helped by moody lighting and cinematography that nicely enhance the squalid setting – the end of the sidewalk in the title is the gutter. The film has its moments and is worth watching, but it comes off as an interesting idea not fully realized.