Where the Sidewalk Ends (1950)

June 26, 1950, release date

Directed by Otto Preminger

Screenplay by Ben Hecht

Story by Victor Trivas, Frank P. Rosenberg, and Robert E. Kent

Based on the 1948 novel Night Cry by William L. Stuart

Music by Cyril Mockridge

Edited by Louis Loeffler

Cinematography by Joseph LaShelle

Dana Andrews as Detective Sgt. Mark Dixon

Gene Tierney as Morgan Taylor-Paine

Gary Merrill as Tommy Scalise

Bert Freed as Detective Sgt. Paul Klein (Dixon’s partner)

Tom Tully as Jiggs Taylor, Morgan’s father

Karl Malden as Detective Lt. Thomas

Ruth Donnelly as Martha, owner of Martha’s Café

Craig Stevens as Ken Paine

Robert Simon as Inspector Nicholas Foley

Harry Von Zell as Ted Morrison

Don Appell as Willie Bender

Neville Brand as Steve (Scalise’s henchman)

Distributed by 20th Century Fox

The opening title sequence is great, with chalk-like writing on a sidewalk. Gene Tierney’s and Dana Andrews’s names are shown first, then the movie title. Then two men, seen only via their shoes and their pants legs, walk over the movie title and exit off screen. The camera pans just a bit to the gutter and drain with running water. Only then do the credits start, with Mark Dixon and his partner riding in their police car and listening to the chatter on the police radio. (The police radio is a bit of realism that reminds me of the opening of another film noir: The Asphalt Jungle. The films were released only a month apart.)

Mark Dixon is a man haunted by his past. His father died trying to shoot his way out of prison, and Mark can’t let the memory go. He worries that he is exactly like his father, which only makes him more physical and aggressive in his police work. He accidently kills a murder suspect, which proves to him that he is his father’s son. But the movie’s portrayal of the fight scene leaves no doubt that it was an accident; it’s much more sympathetic to Mark than Mark is to himself.

By the way, the fight scenes in Where the Sidewalk Ends are very realistic. The fight between Dixon and Paine, the man he accidently kills, doesn’t use any stunt doubles. Dana Andrews and the actors give great performances here and in other fight scenes throughout the film. When Paine grabs Dixon by the throat, I could almost feel my own throat squeezed shut!

Why does Dixon tried to hide the accidental murder of Paine when it’s so clearly a matter of self-defense? Maybe he can’t bear the comparisons that will be made between him and his father. Maybe he can’t bear to hear Inspector Foley berate him again for his heavy-handed tactics. Dixon’s decisions, one bad one after another, lead deeper and deeper into a dark world that fate hands to him and he makes worse.

And I rooted for him the whole way! I wanted him to right his wrongs so he could spend time with his love interest, Morgan Taylor. Played by Gene Tierney, Morgan is separated from the dead man and still legally his wife. This fact compounds Mark’s torment: He knows what he has done and he continues to lie about it, both to his fellow officers and to the woman he loves. The rest of the film left me wondering, almost until the very end, whether Mark would live long enough, first of all, and whether he would start to turn his life around.

I did wonder a bit about the title: Where the Sidewalk Ends. Is it a metaphor for what can happen to people when they decide to leave civilization, or law and order, behind? Or when civilization (or law and order) doesn’t consider them worthy of protection anymore? Mark Dixon gives the clearest explanation of the theme and the meaning of the title when he says to Morgan, “Innocent people can get into terrible jams, too. One false move and you’re in over your head.” You end up in a world that has no clear edges and no longer makes sense.

Where the Sidewalk Ends is a great example of a film noir that keeps the suspense building. It gives a wonderful and sympathetic portrayal of a man burdened by his past.

And it certainly helps that Dana Andrews looks noir-perfect in his fedora and overcoat. He and Dick Tracy could have been brothers!