Mundos Opostos

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.

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.

Check out that cast list... the first EIGHT names are all HUGE, or became huge eventually. They must have blown the budget on just the payroll. Even further (farther ?) down the list, there are biggies. Wm Frawley (FRED!) and Vito Scotti. Poor Barbara S... kept getting nominated for Oscars; should have won it for sure for a couple of those. Stanwyck had just made a run of GREAT films during the 1940s, so it's no wonder this one isn't as well known. In this one, Jessie (Stanwyck) confronts her husband's mistress Isabel (Ava Gardner). James Mason is the playboy husband Brandon Bourne, and tries to have his cake and sleep with it too. Some amazing, big time co-stars - Van Heflin, Nancy Davis Reagan, Cyd Charisse, Gale Sondergaard. Bad stuff happens, and then the cop (a young Williamm Conrad) tries to figure out who-dunnit... so many suspects and motives. Really great film... surprised we don't see this on TCM more often, but so many movies, only so much time, i guess. Directed by Mervyn Leroy, who had worked on some biggies during the 1930s and 1940s.

Mervyn LeRoy does it again. Exquisite cast, superb production >and tight story line make this a must see. Several persons in >this saga want revenge, but you'll have to see how it shakes out >to see just who gets whom. Barbara Stanwyck and Van Heflin are >united on screen once again (The Strange Loves of Martha Ivers) >with an unbelieveable supporting cast. Gale Sondergaard, Ava >Gardner, Cyd Charisse and Nancy Davis make up the bevy of head- >liners and head-turners in a film about love, lust and morality. >See how James Mason figures in with a great ending where some- >one makes a point and leaves no doubt what it's all about.