Where the Sidwalk Ends (1950)

Director: Otto Preminger                                 Writers: Ben Hecht & Victor Trivas
Film Score: Alfred Newman                             Cinematography: Joseph LaShelle
Starring: Dana Andrews, Gene Tierney, Karl Malden and Gary Merrill

Something of a Laura reunion, Where the Sidewalk Ends reunites director Otto Preminger with stars Dana Andrews and Gene Tierney for another film noir outing, this time with somewhat milder results. That said, however, Where the Sidewalk Ends is a good, solid period piece that holds up well against similar films. It certainly doesn’t pack the power of a film like The Big Heat, but then it’s not really meant to. Preminger’s films are more low key overall, like Sidney Lumet of a few decades later.

While it’s difficult to call this an ensemble film, it sort of works that way, the sum of the individual parts actually being greater than the whole. To start with, the leads are perhaps even better than in Laura. Dana Andrews trades in his obsession for rage against criminals, similar to that of Robert Ryan in On Dangerous Ground and with great success. Gene Tierney puts in arguably the finest performance of her career, precisely because of the understated performance. Her beauty is radiant, and without the sinister undercurrent of something like Leave Her to Heaven it’s a role that she can really be appreciated in. The photography by Joseph LaShelle is wonderful, deep, dark, and crystal clear black and white, and the script by Ben Hecht is lean and taut. The only oddity on the credits is the film score. Though apparently Cyril J. Mockridge added connecting passages, the main theme and leitmotif of the entire film is lifted directly from Alfred Newman’s "Street Scene."

The story concerns Andrews as police detective Mark Dixon who is regularly disciplined for police brutality, and as the film opens we see him being demoted to detective second grade. The story is fairly generic, from there. A murder happens at a traveling crap game, in which Gene Tierney was in attendance. Unable to pin the murder on the mobster who is obviously responsible, sends Dixon into a rage. When he visits the apartment of the patsy and accidently kills him, Dixon doesn’t think the brass will believe him and so he tries to cover up the murder . . . with predictable noir consequences. But again, what makes the film work is not so much the plot as the characters.

Brilliant as the mobster is Gary Merrill, who has as his noir-bad-guy-tic the use of a nasal inhaler that would be funny if Merrill himself weren’t so palpably dangerous. Karl Malden is the newly appointed police lieutenant, not quite as dominating as he is in his performance in Hitchock’s I Confess a year later, but close. The film also features a wonderful character actor by the name of Tom Tully, who is best know for his role as Captain DeVriess in The Caine Mutiny, playing Tiernney’s father. Not the greatest noir ever made, but Where the Sidewalk Ends is very watchable and enjoyable nonetheless.