Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for the crime noir Where The Sidewalk Ends.
DVD Review
Where The Sidewalk Ends, staring Dana Andrews, Gene Tierney, Gary Merrill, directed by Otto Preminger, 20th Century Fox, 1950
I guess if you get into a crime noir crazed mode as I have been over the past several months then nothing should surprise you as far as plot line, photography (black and white of course), or actors are concerned. No way, no way in hell, would when I started out this jail break-out reviewing process of the old time films from the mid-1940s to the mid-1950s mostly would I have believed that I would be reviewing a film like the one under review, good, bad, or indifferent, with the title Where The Sidewalk Ends. And no way, no way in hell, would I have believed that I would be, seemingly endlessly now, on a Dana Andrews run. Bogie, no question, Robert Mitchum sure, even Dick Powell in a pinch but Dana Andrews? Oh well, at least he has classic good girl (no femme fatale here even though she is a model) Gene Tierney to keep his eyes on once he gets control of his anger.
With all that build-up you may thing that this one is one for the ages like The Big Sleep or Out Of The Past. No way. First of all it is just a police procedural with a little twist, a bad copper/good copper little twist. See “real” crime noir gumshoes are strictly private, not messing up on the public payroll. And certainly not messing up like Detective Mark Dixon, the role played by Brother Andrews. See he is a cop, a big city cop naturally, whose father was a big-time city crook and he is trying to live that idea down. Live it down by busting up the bad guys, literally and physically, in some cases. And most definitely with no concern, no pre-Miranda concern at least, for the niceties of constitutional law.
One thing will lead to another when you try to cut the corners on edge city and so our boy takes a tumble. Seems a “mark” in a big city gambling operation won too much dough and wanted to go home with it. Well the hard boys, or what passes for hard boys in this one, said no go, no go way. And so the mark is taken care of in the way the hard boys do, although they need a fall guy and he just happens to be the “roper.” Needless to say when Brother Andrews come to investigate the roper’s role in the killing his way-his two-fisted, no knock, no guff from hard boys way, he just happened to get a little carried away. And so mark and roper are joined together, R.I.P.
But wait a minute what about Brother Andrews’ pension and his delight with his job. Here is where the tale gets just a little too weird. He decides to use his little problem as a way to get the hard boys, especially their leader played by Gary Merrill, to take a tumble. The problem is when you start down that road, that cover-up the fix is in road, though you don’t know where things are going to fall. And who is going to take the fall. And who takes the fall, or at least the prime candidate, is none other than the taxi-driving father-in-law of that very dead roper. Now I don’t, personally, care if this or that average cab driver takes a fall for some off-hand murder, those guys charge too much anyway and they always want a tip, even the quiet ones. But this particular cab-driver has a, well, fetching model daughter played by Gene Tierney, who would be very upset, very upset indeed, if papa wound up in stir for a long time.
Also needless to say Brother Andrews is starting to go for said daughter in a big way. So he has to clean up the mess with the father, the mess with the mob, and his own misbegotten mess before the film ends. Tough work, very tough work indeed. But here is where it gets really weird, especially if you have read any newspaper from 1940 to this very day, this cop who gets the bad guys, straight up no questions asks, gets dear cabby papa off from the caboose, and throws an off-hand wink toward darling daughter, decides that he has to take the fall for his improper police procedure. Gone is that pretty little pension, and gone, long gone is the suspicion of disbelief on this one. Where are Sam Spade and Phillip Marlowe when you need them.
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