Misfortunes of Imaginary Beings: 11/10/20

A blog formerly known as Bookishness / By Charles Matthews

"Dazzled by so many and such marvelous inventions, the people of Macondo ... became indignant over the living images that the prosperous merchant Bruno Crespi projected in the theater with the lion-head ticket windows, for a character who had died and was buried in one film and for whose misfortune tears had been shed would reappear alive and transformed into an Arab in the next one. The audience, who had paid two cents apiece to share the difficulties of the actors, would not tolerate that outlandish fraud and they broke up the seats. The mayor, at the urging of Bruno Crespi, explained in a proclamation that the cinema was a machine of illusions that did not merit the emotional outbursts of the audience. With that discouraging explanation many ... decided not to return to the movies, considering that they already had too many troubles of their own to weep over the acted-out misfortunes of imaginary beings."
--Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude

Tuesday, November 10, 2020

Where the Sidewalk Ends (Otto Preminger, 1950)

Dana Andrews and Gene Tierney in Where the Sidewalk Ends

Cast: Dana Andrews, Gene Tierney, Gary Merrill, Bert Freed, Tom Tully, Karl Malden, Ruth Donnelly, Craig Stevens, Neville Brand, Grayce Mills, Robert F. Simon, Harry von Zell. Screenplay: Ben Hecht, Victor Trivas, Frank P. Rosenberg, Robert E. Kent, based on a novel by William L. Stuart. Cinematography: Joseph LaShelle. Art direction: J. Russell Spencer, Lyle R. Wheeler. Music: Cyril J. Mockridge.

In Where the Sidewalk Ends, Dana Andrews plays Mark Dixon, a tough cop who's just a little too eager to rough up the suspects, and he starts the film by getting demoted for it That barely fazes him, however: When he's called on to interview Ken Paine (Craig Stevens), a suspect in a murder that's just been committed, Paine fights back and Dixon punches him out. Unfortunately, Paine had a severe head injury in the war, and he dies. Dixon's attempts to cover up only make things worse, leading to a snarl of consequences that form the plot of this darkly entertaining crime drama. What elevates Where the Sidewalk Ends into more than routine is mostly Ben Hecht's richly slangy, cynical dialogue and Otto Preminger's smooth direction. It helps, too, that Preminger is working with people who made his Laura (1944) one of the classics of Hollywood film: Andrews, of course, who even shares the name Mark with his cop counterpart in Laura, Gene Tierney as another leading lady with a lousy taste in men, and cinematographer Joseph LaShelle, who won an Oscar for the earlier movie. Laura was, however, almost baroque in contrast with the tight, spare Where the Sidewalk Ends, which depends on Hecht's skill at crafting tough talk to overcome some of the story's reliance on pop psychology: Dixon, it seems, developed his sadistic approach to police work because he hated his father, who was a hoodlum gunned down by the cops. The film ends on a nicely unresolved note after Dixon admits to killing Paine and trying to cover it up at the same time that he's being honored for bringing mobster Tommy Scalise (Gary Merrill) to justice.