East Side, West Side

Two of Marcia Davenport's books - "Valley of Decision" and "East Side, West Side" have been adapted for the screen, neither with resounding success.

The Greer Garson-Gregory Peck "Valley of Decision" only used half of the book - risky, since it was a huge best-seller. "East Side, West Side," which stars Barbara Stanwyck, Ava Gardner, James Mason, and Van Heflin, also leaves out valuable source material. The result is part melodrama/part murder mystery, with mixed results.

Stanwyck and Mason star as married couple Jessie and Brandon, and at the beginning of the film, despite a lovey-dovey scene in a taxicab, we can see what the problem is. He goes to a bar and seems to be trying to pick up Rosa (Cyd Charisse).

When his picture makes the front page the next day for being in a bar fight, Rosa explains the situation to Jessie and the two become friends. She introduces Jessie to the man she loves, Mark Dwyer, and it's obvious from the beginning that he's attracted to Jessie.

Mark has known Rosa since she was a child, doesn't have romantic feelings for her, and the two part friends. Jessie, however, wants her husband, and is panicked when she learns that the woman who nearly ruined their marriage, Isabel (Ava Gardner) is back in town. Brandon is obsessed with her - and Isabel knows it.

Heflin and Stanwyck make a great pair, and the audience wants them together right away. Mason exhibits no emotion throughout. Gale Sondergaard is excellent as Stanwyck's mother, though one wonders about the casting as she was only a few years older than Stanwyck.

One comment stated that Stanwyck was too old for her role; I actually think Sondergaard was too young, as Mason, Heflin, and Stanwyck were within a few years of one another.

One bit of casting that is interesting is Charisse, as she bore a resemblance to Gardner, so the initial attraction Mason has for Rosa bears out his obsession with Isabel.

Gardner provides all the excitement in "East Side, West Side" as a purely sexual being who lives off of men and enjoys exerting her power over them. She's absolutely gorgeous and just about burns a hole in the film with her steamy performance. Rita Hayworth and Ava Gardner were unique screen goddesses who had the whole package - beauty, body, voice, and an erotic sensuality.

Stanwyck is sympathetic in a familiar role for her, and Heflin's energetic performance is juxtaposed against Mason's, making one wonder why Stanwyck is wasting her time. Hollywood seemed to want to make Marcia Davenport's rich novels into ordinary screen stories. It succeeded.

As everyone knows, I don't like Ava Gardner, so usually if I like one of her movies, I say I like it "in spite of her." East Side, West Side is fantastic, including Ava, not in spite of her.

James Mason is married to Barbara Stanwyck, and in the 1940s, it was unusual for Hollywood to cast a woman past per prime as the lead. Some would say that's still the case now, and Barbara Stawyck, in her gray-streaked splendor, does a fantastic job. As does the fantastically conflicted James Mason, who gets seduced by his old flame Ava Gardner. As if one temptation isn't complicated enough, Barbara Stanwyck gets distracted by policeman Van Heflin! It's a fantastic drama that turns into so much more as the film goes on, and I'd love to read Marcia Davenport's original novel, to see if the Ava Gardner scenes are even steamier on the page. I love the script and the characters, not to mention the compelling storyline. It's thrilling, smart, romantic, and intense. This is one classic you're not going to want to miss!

Stanwyck and Heflin have a palpable chemistry here, and Ava Gardner is a most alluring vixen. Cyd Charisse is a delectable ingenue (and a tall drink of water), while Gale Sondergaard is hilarious as a hard-bitten, hoydenish Amazon floozie. Stanwyck is playing about 10 years younger than her actual age (her film mother admits to being 55, when Stanwyck is in her early forties here, and while still handsome, she does look her age).

Mervyn Leroy did a nice job of combining the noir/woman's-picture genres, though its ennoblement of Stanwyck robs her of her strengths as a no-nonsense woman, good or bad. Her scene with Gardner is a standout -- both actresses are well matched; Gardner's feline beauty and laissez-faire romantic approach nicely complements Stanwyck's humane fatalism -- and Stanwyck and Van Heflin are an appealing couple. Mason is rather a chump, however -- he seems to be underplaying to the point of lethargy, though his handsome charm surfaces here and there; yet he and Stanwyck, though matched in terms of age (she was younger by a couple of years) are not the type for each other; he doesn't suit her, screen-wise. Heflin's naturalism -- a performance of great charm and likability -- is more suited to Stanwyck's style and one longs for them to get together. Great use of sets to evoke New York, teeming with nightlife, and Leroy always had a knack for directing extras so that the city scenes seem peopled with real lives rather than populated with stand-ins. Costumes, though late 1940s, seem a bit recherche, as if the designer hadn't left the 1930s, with the women's gowns too ornate for such a sophisticated post-war milieu.

Not a great picture by any means, but a highly enjoyable one; a viewer wishes the director and screenwriter -- the talented Isobel Lennart, who later wrote "Two for the Seesaw," among many others -- had trusted more in the chemistry between Heflin and Stanwyck, and discarded some of the Marcia Davenport source material, juicy as it must have been. This is from Stanwyck's late-1940s string of women's flicks, which did not play to her strengths. But middling Stanwyck is usually better than anyone else's best. And the underrated Van Heflin is worth rooting for, too.

Compelling. This film took me by surprise - I couldn't resist it. Stanwyck is always 100% watchable and moving and she's smart and Van Heflin is a man's man and a very subtly intense actor. Ava Gardner was outstanding and Cyd Charisse is excellent. Mason is not my cup of tea but he pulled it off. These are actors who move with fluid grace and attack their lines and we just don't have American actors like this at present. I watched it a second time because it was seamless and sexy in a very subtle way. The clothes are gorgeous too. All of the intimacy between Heflin and Stanwyck and the easy way he had of just declaring himself was exciting. I was too young to appreciate this actor before, but I'm old enough now to want men to be men in films again.

Barbara Stanwyck was a great actress over a long and distinguished career and this is an enjoyable drama about the lives and loves of upper income New Yorkers in the late forties. But as much as she delivers her usual sterling performance, I couldn't help but feel sorry for her as she is upstaged in the glamour stakes by both Cyd Charisse and Ava Gardner who are both at the apex of their beauty. A secondary niggle relating to the casting has both Babs and Cyd fighting for the affections of Van Heflin. Van Heflin!! On the other hand James Mason is well-cast as the weak-willed sleazy husband. Overall an impressive entry into the "woman's picture" of the forties genre.