One Step Too Far to the Street

When's a tough guy too tough for his own good? Dana Andrews finds out in 1950's Where the Sidewalk Ends, an Otto Preminger film noir that re-teams Andrews with Gene Tierney, his costar from Preminger's classic Laura. Where the Sidewalk Ends is grittier, filled with desperate men in dark, dirty streets and back rooms. The ending feels forced but can't dispel the gloom accrued by Ben Hecht's masterful screenplay, giving us a prototypical noir protagonist, caught in a tragic snare of circumstance and his own choices.

This one is definitely more of a showcase for Andrews than Laura. Like Night and the City from around the same time, Tierney has a small, barely consequential role. It's her husband Andrews accidentally slugs to death.

Andrews' character, Dixon, is a police detective and he was just being a little rough with the man. How was he to know he had a silver plate in his head? Unfortunately, Dixon has a track record of getting too rough with suspects so he knows this incident is likely to get him canned or worse. But it's not just his own skin at stake--Dixon seems to be the only one on the case who's pegged the real culprit of a murder. So Dixon has to cover up his own manslaughter.

It's not such a far fetched sequence of a events. I didn't really like Andrews in Laura or in other movies I've seen him in but he's pretty good here. Maybe Robert Ryan would've been better but there's something more vulnerable and panicked about Andrews. You watch those wide eyes of his, fervently glaring from under his hat brim, wondering if he's going to get caught or come apart every second. It's a great nightmare.

Where the Sidewalk Ends is available on The Criterion Channel.

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