Where the Sidewalk Ends (film)

Where the Sidewalk Ends
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Otto Preminger
Screenplay by	Ben Hecht
Story by	Victor Trivas Frank P. Rosenberg Robert E. Kent
Based on	Night Cry 1948 novel by William L. Stuart
Produced by	Otto Preminger
Starring	Dana Andrews Gene Tierney
Cinematography	Joseph LaShelle
Edited by	Louis Loeffler
Music by	Cyril Mockridge
Color process	Black and white
Production company	20th Century Fox
Distributed by	20th Century Fox
Release date	July 7, 1950 (1950-7-7)
Running time	95 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$1,475,000
Box office	$1 million

Where the Sidewalk Ends is a 1950 American film noir directed and produced by Otto Preminger. The screenplay for the film was written by Ben Hecht, and adapted by Robert E. Kent, Frank P. Rosenberg, and Victor Trivas. The screenplay and adaptations were based on the novel Night Cry by William L. Stuart. The film stars Dana Andrews and Gene Tierney.

Andrews plays Mark Dixon, a ruthless and cynical metropolitan police detective who despises all criminals because his father was one, and finds himself trying to cover up his own accidental killing of a suspect in a murder case. Considered a classic of the genre, the film displays a brand of violence "lurking below urban society" considered an important noir motif.

Plot

New York City, 1950. Mark Dixon is a city police detective who is demoted by Inspector Foley due to his frequent use of violence, stemming from his own father's past as a criminal. Meanwhile, in a hotel in another part of town, gangster Tommy Scalise's floating crap game becomes the scene of a visiting Texas tycoon's death. Police are summoned, among them Dixon, who had arrested Scalise years earlier for murder but was acquitted. Interrogation yields information that newspaper columnist Ken Paine and a model, Morgan Taylor, had left the game early. Dixon takes part in the investigation. He looks up Paine at his apartment. During questioning, Paine's drunken belligerence becomes too much for Dixon. While defending himself, he slugs Paine, hard. In fact, hard enough to kill him. It turns out that Paine had a metal plate in his head as the result of a war injury.

After his recent demotion for use of violence, Dixon seeks to conceal what happened. Borrowing Paine's coat and putting a bandage on his own face where Paine had one, he lays a false trail suggesting that Paine left town. Back at Paine's apartment, Dixon barely avoids being seen by Morgan Taylor's father, cab driver Jiggs Taylor, who arrives and (having discovered Paine had slapped his daughter) noisily threatens him from outside his door, then leaves when there is no answer. Dixon then transports Paine's corpse to the river, where it is dumped. But the body is soon discovered and, moving to cover himself, Dixon suggests that Scalise murdered Paine as well as the unlucky tycoon from Texas.

As the case develops, detectives talk to Morgan and Jiggs Taylor. It is revealed Morgan was Paine's estranged wife. The night of the murder at Scalise's crap game was the first time she had seen him in months. Dixon still insists that Scalise was the murderer. Yet Jiggs had been seen at Paine's apartment and is arrested. Dixon and Morgan have developed a mutual attraction, but he cannot bear to tell her the truth. So he arranges a top lawyer for Jiggs, one who has never lost a murder case. However, the attorney refuses the case. After a fruitless confrontation with Scalise, Dixon writes a letter, addressing the envelope to Inspector Foley, marking it "to be opened in the event of my death." He then arranges to meet with Scalise again, fully expecting to be murdered but reasoning that at least this time Scalise will be held responsible.

But Scalise has anticipated this and has realized what happened to Paine. He refuses to kill Dixon, shooting him in the arm instead. Then one of Scalise's men arrives with news that police have learned the truth about the tycoon's murder from an informant. As the gang attempts escape by means of a car elevator, Dixon delays them by stalling it until police arrive. Back at Dixon's precinct headquarters, Foley, who is proud of Dixon's work, returns Dixon's letter to him, unopened, but Dixon tells him to open and read it. After doing so, Foley arrests Dixon. Morgan is present, looking forward to starting a life with Dixon. Perplexed, she asks why he is now being taken into custody; Dixon asks Foley to show her the letter. Even knowing the truth, her love for Dixon is undaunted. She confidently declares that he will not be punished for the accidental death.

Cast

• Dana Andrews as Det. Mark Dixon
• Gene Tierney as Morgan Taylor
• Gary Merrill as Tommy Scalise
• Bert Freed as Det. Paul Klein
• Tom Tully as Jiggs Taylor
• Karl Malden as Lt. Thomas
• Ruth Donnelly as Martha
• Craig Stevens as Ken Paine
• Neville Brand as Steve (uncredited)
• Harry von Zell as Mr. Morrison (uncredited)
• Oleg Cassini as Oleg (uncredited)

Background

Where the Sidewalk Ends is the last film that Otto Preminger would make as a director-for-hire for Twentieth Century Fox in the 1940s. The series includes Laura, which also stars Gene Tierney and Dana Andrews, Whirlpool (starring Tierney), as well as Fallen Angel and Daisy Kenyon (both starring Andrews).

Where the Sidewalk Ends was primarily shot on a studio set, but the filmmakers also shot a few scenes at actual New York City locations.

Reception

Critical response

Most critics compare the film unfavorably to Preminger's earlier film Laura, which used much of the same talent. According to film writers, this film, a grittier noir, does succeed in showing a darker side of police similar to the film noirs that follow it.

The New York Times film critic, Bosley Crowther, while thinking the script was too far-fetched, liked the way the dialogue was written, and the acting as well. He wrote, "...the plausibility of the script by Ben Hecht, an old hand with station houses and sleazy underworldlings, is open to question on several counts. Not so, however, his pungent dialogue and unfolding of the plot, which Otto Preminger, who guided the same stars through Laura several seasons back, has taken to like a duck to water and kept clipping along crisply till the fadeout."

The staff at Variety magazine praised the direction of the film. They wrote, "Otto Preminger, director, does an excellent job of pacing the story and of building sympathy for Andrews." Harrison's Reports called the film "one of the most taut and absorbing crime melodramas produced in many a moon," with "exceptionally good" dialogue. John McCarten of The New Yorker, however, only deemed it to be "a fair-to-middling-melodrama."

Preservation

The Academy Film Archive preserved Where the Sidewalk Ends in 2004.

External links

• Where the Sidewalk Ends at the AFI Catalog of Feature Films
• Where the Sidewalk Ends at IMDb
• Where the Sidewalk Ends at the TCM Movie Database
• Where the Sidewalk Ends trailer on YouTube

Streaming audio

• Where the Sidewalk Ends "Night Cry", radio adaptation of original source material for Suspense show—1948