East Side, West Side

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.

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.

The main theme of this movie is one that has played out so many times in movies and books (and life): a man (James Mason) cheats on his wife (Barbara Stanwyck) with a woman (Ava Gardner) who gives him the thrills she cannot. The affair was over, but now she's back. He resists, but she points out that fireworks are not something to be taken lightly: "Maybe it wasn't love, maybe it was only chemistry, or the right combination, or a miracle. But most people drag through their whole lives without finding it. We both know that, don't we Bran?" And when he tells her he doesn't want to see her again, she purrs the sexy double entendre "I'll do exactly what you want Bran, exactly what you want."

Gardner is just brilliant, oozing raw desire and channeling Jean Harlow in "The Red-Headed Woman" when she later gets slapped by Mason. Instead of being hurt, she eggs him on, knowing his passion is rising, and knows "that's what you're missing at home", and "you want to be rotten like me." Stanwyck plays the virtuous wife with quiet grace, though I thought she was too reserved in a showdown scene with the outlandishly mean Gardner. It's always great to see her movies though, and she does play 'hurt' and 'conflicted' well.

There is a lot of star power here, with Cyd Charisse and Van Heflin also in the cast, and even an appearance from Nancy Davis, who of course would later be Nancy Reagan. As Stanwyck is betrayed by Mason, she turns to Heflin, and it's quite clear they're mutually attracted. Heflin is so smooth and likable, and there is dignity in his acknowledgment of his love for her without resorting to adultery, in direct contrast to Gardner and Mason. Mason and Stanwyck may have gotten top billing, but I think they were upstaged by Heflin and Gardner.

As the pressure ratchets up, both Mason and Stanwyck find themselves needing to make choices, though Mason's is disrupted by an event I won't spoil. There are some events that might be too convenient as it plays out, but there is reality and passion here, and I enjoyed this film.

Can someone respond to let me know why the name "Lorrison" was featured in so many movies around this time? I have never heard of a person in real life with that name; yet it pops up over and over. And here, the character played by Ava Gardner is never referred to is Isabel but always, always, by both names.

I first saw this movie on TV as a teenager and assumed that life in Manhattan would be like this, just as thought the publishing world would be as it's portrayed in "The Best of Everything."

This has very chic settings -- the East side locations much more believable than the brief excursion into the West side area ostensibly the scene of Heflin -- and Stanwkyck's -- childhood.

The acting is good. The plot is engaging. Decent lines. The direction, though, is very static. All the style comes from the presumably Sutton Place location and the elegant interiors and from the fabulous cast of real movie stars, with James Mason a suave cad prefiguring his brilliant Humbert Humbert a bit more than a decade later.

Gale Sondergaard is amusing as Stanwyck's elderly mother. At one point, she says, "I'm 55 years old." Interesting, as in real life she was only eight years older than Stanwyck, who was 42 when this came out.

Still and all, this movie has stuck in my head for many years as the epitome of chic. The actors are all plausible as socialites, and Gardner is properly gorgeous and evil as a (very) beautiful girl who's hustled her way over from the wrong side of the tracks.

It's fun, but it could have been really great, given the performers, the original author and the screenwriter.

Extremely busy marital melodrama which (rather unsuccessfully) lapses into a homicide investigation! New York City socialite Barbara Stanwyck loves and trusts investment counselor husband James Mason--even though he has a penchant for disappearing after-hours and returning home at four in the morning. Turns out old flame Ava Gardner is back in town; she's a high-class man-chaser who won't take no for an answer. Screenwriter Isobel Lennart, working from the novel by Marcia Davenport, starts things off routinely, but keeps adding characters until the scenario is bubbling over like a stew-pot. Van Heflin does wonders with a shapeless role as a war correspondent/ex-detective who ends up in jilted Stanwyck's kitchen, flirting with her in Italian, while Gardner is offered some juicy repartee (when Mason calls her "cheap", Ava replies, "That's what you like about me."). A country square-dance is curiously transplanted to a Manhattan penthouse, and Beverly Michaels' supporting performance congeals into high camp; still, Barbara and Van have an immediate rapport--one that is not apparent in her scenes with Mason (who doesn't help his cause by portraying the cad-husband like a petulant boy). Stanwyck, outfitted and coiffed like a lady ten times her age, initially doesn't have much to do, but Lennart's script soon has her traveling all over the city--east side, west side, and beyond. It's a nervous, flighty picture, paced exhaustively by director Mervyn LeRoy, but overall quite watchable. **1/2 from ****