Stometer Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Ariella Broughton It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

Jonah Abbott There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

Mandeep Tyson The acting in this movie is really good.

JohnHowardReid Producer: Otto Preminger. Copyright 4 July 1950 by 20th Century-Fox Film Corp. New York opening the Roxy: 7 July 1950. U.S. release: July 1950. U.K. release: 18 September 1950. Australian release: 1 December 1950. 8,502 feet. 94 minutes.SYNOPSIS: A tough policeman with a reputation for beating confessions out of criminals, is sent to question a man suspected of murder. He becomes involved in a fight, and accidentally kills the man. The cop believes that a gang leader, Scalise, is responsible for the original crime, and that if he succeeds in concealing his own guilt he can secure Scalise's conviction for both murders. Unfortunately he meets and falls in love with the victim's widow.COMMENT: Preminger always stated in interviews that he remembered absolutely nothing about this movie. Certainly he doesn't even so much as mention it in his autobiography. That's a pity because there are two very interesting people involved with the production: Screenwriter Ben Hecht (under the pseudonym Rex Connor - though TV prints now credit Hecht in big letters); and dress designer Oleg Cassini (under the pseudonym Don Appel - get it, Don Apparel) who gives a remarkable performance as the spiv, Willie Bender. At the time, Cassini was married to star Gene Tierney.Producer/director Preminger liked unusual casting. He brought Clifton Webb back to the screen for Laura and he was later to introduce director John Huston in front of the cameras for The Cardinal, plus lawyer Joseph N. Welch in Anatomy of a Murder, unknown Jean Seberg in Saint Joan, politician John V. Lindsay in Rosebud.Yes, it's amazing Preminger remembers nothing about this movie. An obvious spin-off from Laura, it suffers from a typically limpid performance from Gene Tierney - who fortunately makes a late entrance, but then efficiently proceeds to slow down the pace which till then had been memorably brisk. Fortunately, Miss Tierney makes amends by lending her husband to the film, a bit of really inspired casting. Dana Andrews of course is as stiff as usual, but there's a great support cast of typically Hechtian characters (complete with sharp dialogue) who are vigorously brought to life. (Cassini incidentally has yet another role here - playing himself). Even more important than this fine array of character players, we have Gary Merrill giving the performance of his life as the smarmy gangster. Classily semi-documentary Fox in flavor and style with lots of location shooting in glossily low-key photography, and a cleverly integrated music score using Alfred Newman's famous "Street Scene", Where the Sidewalk Ends, despite its faults, is a definite must for the film noir connoisseur.

AaronCapenBanner Otto Preminger directed this film noir that stars Dana Andrews as detective Mark Dixon, recently demoted for roughing up too many suspects. He is determined to take down gangster Tommy Scalise(played by Gary Merrill) but instead knocks out another suspect, inadvertently killing him. Dixon then covers up the crime, but in the ensuing investigation, finds himself falling for the man's widow Morgan(played by Gene Tierney) whose father ends up charged with the crime he committed. How can he clear him, court her, take down Scalise, and escape punishment himself? Involved thriller works well, with fine acting and compelling story, effectively re-teaming Andrews and Tierney.

Roger Pettit "Where the Sidewalk Ends" is film noir at its best: entertaining, well-acted and directed, with a very good plot and outstanding cinematography and character depiction. Based on the hardboiled crime novel "Night Cry" by William L Stuart (which I have not read), the film tells the story of 16th precinct New York police detective Mark Dixon (Dana Andrews). Dixon is somewhat unconventional in his working methods. He seems to want to punish criminals in addition to investigating them, an attitude that apparently springs from his relationship with his father who was a thief and who died when Dixon was 17 years old while trying to escape from jail. At the beginning of the film, Dixon is not only passed over for promotion because of his disruptive approach to his work but is also demoted. While investigating the death of a wealthy patron of an illegal crap game, he accidentally murders the principal suspect while trying to get information from him. He covers his tracks but, in doing so, inadvertently casts suspicion on an innocent taxi driver, who happens to be the victim's father-in-law. To complicate matters further, Dixon falls in love with Morgan (Gene Tierney), the taxi driver's daughter and the estranged wife of the man he has killed. Matters continue from there (but it would be inappropriate to say anything more about them).The acting in "Where the Sidewalk Ends" is superb. Dana Andrews and Gene Tierney give excellent performances and are ably supported by Karl Malden (who plays the detective who is promoted at Dixon's expense) and Gary Merrill (who plays Scalise, the crook who organised the illegal crap game that brought about the events depicted in the film). Andrews's performance skilfully elicits sympathy from the viewer for a character who is dogged by his antecedents and by the anguish and injury that his unconventional behaviour causes. The screenplay is very good indeed. And one of the many effective aspects of the film is its judicious use of its excellent score. Indeed, one of the notable features of "Where the Sidewalk Ends" is the comparative absence of music in important parts of the film. The opening credits, which consist primarily of a picture of a pair of feet walking along a pavement (sidewalk), have no musical accompaniment at all. There are some faults. A fight scene involving Dixon and Scalise and his fellow hoodlums seems amateurish in execution (many of the seemingly effective punches thrown make no contact whatsoever with their intended targets), even for a film made in 1950. And the optimistic tone of the conclusion jars somewhat. But, despite its faults, "Where the Sidewalk Ends" is a very clever, enjoyable and entertaining film. 8/10.

dougdoepke Oh my, the producers really deglamorized the luscious Tierney for this role. Not that her exquisite over-bite doesn't still shine through, it's just that her wardrobe doesn't exceed fifty bucks, everything included. She better be dressed down because here she's no upper-class babe like in Laura, {1944}. Instead, she's a struggling daughter of the working class, eating in cheap diners with her favorite leading man, Dana Andrews. He's a cop again, but even meaner and less imaginative than the mesmerized worshiper of Laura.This movie looks like a proletarian response to that poshly mounted earlier movie. It's still noir, but the lighting is more natural, in the style of later crime films. It's also a pretty grim film, even for thrillers. Just count the number of Mark's (Andrews) smiles; I stopped at zero. Then too, the unfriendly characters are pretty evenly divided between quarreling cops, on one hand, and hulking thugs, on the other. No wonder, Mark's sense of humor is lagging. It's a dour urban milieu the whole way, even if poor old ladies listen to Mozart on the radio.So what's Mark going to do now that he's accidentally killed a guy, dumped the body, and watched his sweetie Morgan's (Tierney) dad, of all people, take the rap. That's his moral dilemma, one he can maybe solve by pinning the crime on mob boss Scalise (Merrill, in an exotic performance). It better work because the luscious Morgan's the prize. Meanwhile, what's he going to do about the spectre of his father that portends a fateful end. Anyhow, in my little book, it's underrated noir the whole way. Except it's probably not good viewing if you've just gotten a tax bill from the feds.(In passing—for veteran TV viewers, it's odd seeing the suavely dapper Peter Gunn {Craig Stevens} playing a thug. It's sort of like seeing Cary Grant strong-arming a nun.)