On Dangerous Ground, which premiered today in 1951, is a film noir melodrama about a bad cop who finds a reason to reset his professional and emotional lives. It was adapted from Gerard Butler’s novel Mad with Much Heart, and that title pretty much tells the tale, as Robert Ryan plays a detective so mean even his colleagues warn him he’s out of control.
He eventually ruptures a suspect’s bladder during a beating. He deserves to be drummed out of the police and publicly shamed for such a transgression (in our opinion), but his chief, instead of handing him the pink slip he deserves, sends him to the mountains to help with a distant investigation until the heat cools. Once there Ryan finds a reason to reassess his life in the form of Ida Lupino, the blind but insightful sister of a murder suspect. She can sense bullshit and hurt miles away, and she becomes the first person that Ryan has actually listened to for a long time.
On Dangerous Ground is not by any means the best that film noir has to offer, but it has its moments, including extensive location shooting in snowy western Colorado. For noir completists it’s certainly one to watch. Those with limited time allotments can probably give it a pass in favor of something better, but note that Lupino is a film noir icon as both an actress and director, and in fact directed some scenes in this movie, though she wasn’t credited. Keep an eye out for her official work.
The Woman on Pier 13, for which you see a very nice promo poster above, had a pre-release title that tells you everything you need to know about it. That title was I Married a Communist. What you get here is a melodrama about Laraine Day, whirlwind married to successful San Francisco industrialist Robert Ryan, an exemplar of American free enterprise, but who was once a member of the communist party back in New Jersey. Uh oh.
Let me feel your neck for a second. Don’t worry, I’ve gotten over your devastating betrayal.
to aggressive hate with reactive hate. The expectation that he possess superhuman forbearance while his oppressor can be merely human removes context and wrongly demands that everybody behave identically despite their different circumstances and different locations within the spectrum of power.
