La maison dans l'ombre

Nicolas Ray who directed a string of good films, most notably In a Lonely Place, Flying Leatjernecks and They live by Night and would become best known for Rebel Without a Cause directed this fine film-noir flick from 1952. He had taken the idea for the story based on the Gerald Butler novel Mad With Much Heart. Ray teamed with Albert Bezzerides for the screenplay who had written They Drive by Night, Desert Fury and Thieves Highway for the screen and would become best known in film for Kiss Me Deadly. He would become better known in television as the creator of the long running western series The Big Valley. Excellent photography in this film from cinematographer George E. Diskant. Robert Ryan is one of Hollywood's most underrated actors and in the staring role of a burnt out city cop on the road to redemption and awakening, turns in yet another great performance. Ida Lupino is another of my favorites and this time around plays a blind woman living alone in rural upstate Mew York. This is a film in two acts that are almost like tow separate films. Part one we find the Ryan character as a violent tough and over the edge cop who once was a popular high school football star and has become burned out in his job and dissatisfied with his lonely small apartment so he hates his job and his life away from work. The first half of the film is mostly night scenes. He is sent by his superiors to cool off in the frozen north and try to help solve a local murder. In the Ward Bond character as the Father of a murdered woman he meets someone even more angry and violent than he is. Bond delivers a strong supporting role performance. Rounding out the fine cast are Ed Begley, Charles Kemper and Anthony Ross. Famed, prolific composer Bernard Hermann provide the musical score. The story might be a little simplistic at times and predictable but it is still a strong film and I would give it an 8.5 out of 10.

The lonely and tough Jim Wilson (Robert Ryan) is an efficient detective that frequently uses excessive violence to resolve his cases and even his partners do not approve his behavior. While chasing two cop killers, he blows the bladder of another suspect during the interrogation to get the information to catch the assassins. He is warned by his chief Captain Brawley (Ed Begley) to cool off, and when he beats another suspect on the street, Brawley sends him "upstate to Siberia" in the cold Westham to calm down and help the locals in a murder case of a girl. When he arrives, he visits the family of the victim, whose father Walter Brent (Ward Bond) is decided to kill the murderer. They chase the man through the snow, and after a car accident, they reach the isolated house of Mary Malden (Ida Lupino), a blind woman that lives alone in the middle of nowhere with her brother Danny (Sumner Williams) that has mental problem. Brent and Jim are lodged by Mary to spend the night, and Jim is affected by Mary in a process of humanization and redemption.

"On Dangerous Ground"is a simple movie with a tale of loneliness, trust and redemption developed through two totally different characters that have only loneliness in common. Jim Wilson lives in the big city, is brutal, trusts nobody and is in the edge in his career, acting like a gangster wearing a badge. Mary Malden lives in the countryside, is gentle, has to trust everybody and sacrificed her chance to see again to take care of her mentally unstable brother. The process of humanization of Jim Wilson is depicted through his relationship with Mary and is very touching. Ida Lupino and Robert Ryan have great performances under the direction of Nicholas Ray in this credible story. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Cinzas Que Queimam" ("Ashes that Burn")

Note: On 14 January 2017, I saw this film again.

Lovely is not a word I would normally use when describing a film noir, yet here I am, labeling On Dangerous Ground as a lovely piece of work. It is perhaps Nicholas Ray's most upbeat movie, beginning as a hard- hitting cop story and ending on a heartwarming note, with renewal and hopefulness at its beck and call. It is the only tender film noir I've seen. Genre turnarounds can be hurtful to the tone of a film, as no one wants to go to the theaters for a Will Ferrell vehicle only to find it sinking into tragedy rather than an uproariously funny closer. But by tying the pessimistic atmosphere of the first act into the neuroses of the title character, the shift in On Dangerous Ground is largely flattering, a difficult feat that Ray pulls off with unwavering certainty. He believes in the story, and, as a result, so do we.

Robert Ryan portrays Jim Wilson, a worn-out detective who is growing increasingly intolerant towards the disreputable scum he deals with on a regular basis. In past film noirs, cops as violent as Wilson would eventually go as far as murdering someone, spending the rest of the movie trying to make their wrongs into rights. But in On Dangerous Ground, it immediately becomes evident that Wilson is capable of saintly good nature but has been pushed over the edge by the constant surrounding sleaze.

After beating up a number of suspects during arrest, his precinct grows concerned and sends him away to the outskirts of town to investigate the murder of a young woman. Upon arrival, he finds a reflection of himself in the hateful family of the victim, and, during the investigation, falls for Mary Malden (Ida Lupino), the blind sister of the prime suspect who serves as a ray of light in his jet-black life. In theory, On Dangerous Ground should be clunky and awkward; yet, it is kind of brilliant. It looks and feels like a film noir, but that's only a disguise for the more touching instances of psychological study. Everything is presented in such a nonchalant, nearly conventional manner that the power it eventually bears is unexpectedly poignant. Only Ray could direct this sort of material; most do not have the same curious capacity to switch from the hard-boiled to the humane.

The contrast between the slick city streets and the snowy grounds of the more evangelical countryside are competently histrionic. As Wilson enters the fresh, cool landscape, a tidal wave of reversal falls upon us. In the first few minutes of the film, as we watch Wilson fight crime with boorish tenacity, the streets so usually enthralling in film noir turn into something uncomfortably grimy and greasy. Crime is like a horde of ants crawling up and down our arms. The countryside, though still the setting of a murder, has a comforting tranquility. Without people scattered in every nook and cranny, there is a chance to breathe. The entrance of Lupino is reminiscent to that of an angel falling out the sky; with no eyesight, she is unable to see the vile underpinnings of the world. Her kindness is a gift.

As Wilson's life converts from direly violent to one of prospect, there is something stirring that occurs that softened me more than I ever would have thought possible. In film noir, we're used to endless acerbity; it is rare that a character, a policeman who seems so destined to head down a dark path, is given a second chance. Throughout his career, Ryan was mostly typecast as a villain with a booming voice, but in On Dangerous Ground he is given a chance to be expressive and sensitive. It is a surprisingly wistful performance, connecting with ease towards the delicate, soul-baring Lupino.

On Dangerous Ground has been pushed aside as a minor work from the illustrious Nicholas Ray (The Big Heat, Rebel Without a Cause), but it's nevertheless shimmering all these years later. Its audacious attempts to subvert the norms of such a specific genre are absorbingly moving.

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On Dangerous Ground is directed by Nicholas Ray and stars Ida Lupino, Robert Ryan & Ward Bond. It's loosely adapted by Ray and A. I. Bezzerides from Gerald Butler's novel Mad With Much Heart. Cinematography is by George E. Diskant & the music is provided by Bernard Herrmann & Paul Sawtell. The story concerns Ryan's weary, lonely and psychologically bothered cop, Jim Wilson. Who after finally snapping the patience of his superiors is sent to Westham in the rural north to aid a murder case there. The idea is to get him off the streets he's so bitter about and to stop him finally going over the violence tinged edge. It's here, amongst the wintry landscapes, that he is brought into contact with Mary Malden (Lupino). A practically blind woman, Mary holds all the keys to the mystery and to the door at the end of Wilson's journey.

Right from the outset we are in no doubt that Nicholas Ray is about to take us on a noir journey. Herrmann's pulse like score accompanies its nighttime opening, Diskant's photography immediately painting a harsh city where life on the streets is tough. A place where loneliness can eat away at the soul and bleakness pours down off of the bars and the cheaply built apartments. It is in short, firmly encapsulating of Jim Wilson's bitterness and frame of mind. Wilson, once a prime athlete, is mired in solitude, his only telling contribution to society is his work, but that is ebbing away by the day. His mood is not helped by his partners, Pop & Pete, who can easily switch off once their shift has finished - but they have family to go home to, Wilson does not. Wilson's only source of joy comes courtesy of the paperboy he briefly plays football with out on the street (a rare ray of light in the film's moody atmospheric first half).

Then the film shifts for its second act, a shift that has made On Dangerous Ground a most divisive picture in discussions over the years. Sent north to effectively cool down by Captain Brawley (Ed Begley), we find Wilson leaving behind the dank city and entering the snowbound countryside in the north. Dark has become light as it were. The whole style and pace of the film has changed, yet this is still a place tainted by badness. A girl has been murdered and Wilson is still here to locate potential evil. An evil that the murdered girls father (Ward Bond as Walter Brent) wants to snuff out with his own vengeful fury. As the two men track down the killer, Wilson sees much of himself in Brent's anger, but once the guys arrive at Mary Malden's isolated cabin, things shift just a little more.

Said to be a favourite of Martin Scorsese, and an influence for Taxi Driver, On Dangerous Ground has often been called Nicholas Ray's best film by some of his fans (I'd say In A Lonely Place personally). Odd then that Ray himself wasn't happy with the film, calling it a failure and not the finished product he had envisaged. Ray had wanted a three structured movie, not the two part one it is; with the final third being far bleaker and more noirish than the one we actually get. However, and the ending is a bit scratchy for the genre it sits in, it's still a fabulous film that is more about the journey of its protagonist than the diversity caused by its finale. Ryan is terrific, a real powerhouse and believable performance, while Lupino beautifully realises Mary's serene impact on Wilson and the counter opposite to the darkness within the picture. It's a given really, but Herrmann's score is potent, listen out for the opening, the crossover section from city to countryside and the rock face pursuit. While Ray directs with his customary knack of blending the grim with the almost poetic. 8/10

The Nicholas Ray-A.I. Bezzerides On Dangerous Ground is a modestly budgeted film that tries to be different, and succeeds. Tough, brutal city cop Robert Ryan is sent upstate to help solve a murder case, and also to be got rid of, since he seems to be on the verge of mental breakdown. Along the way he runs into a blind woman, the father of the murdered teen, and a few locals. This is the bare bones of the story, such as it is, which on the surface appears mundane. But writer Bezzerides and director Ray were up to other things, and the crime picture trappings of this film are deceptive. The movie is really about that most modern of issues, alienation, and more generally, anomie, the feeling of displacement, namelessness, uselessness, that so many people have in such a fast-paced and mechanized society as ours. Ryan's character is a solitary, apparently celibate cop, who loves no one, and doesn't even like his job. He has a sense of morality, which is maybe what keeps him going. It also, alas, gets him into hot water with his superiors when he punches out one too many suspects, which is the reason for his being sent upstate, to Siberia, as he puts it. Ida Lupino, the blind woman he falls for, is equally isolated, but more serene. Her intuition tells her that Ryan is far more sensitive than he seems (or even understands), and they become close (but not lovers). She represents his good side, the part of him he has repressed all these years. Ward Bond, as the vengeful father of the murder victim, is like a caricature of Ryan, and also skeptical of him as a "city cop", as he puts it.

There's much to recommend in this film. Bernard Hermann's music is excellent. Ray's handling of the chase scenes in the snow, and his evocation of a small rural community, is masterful. The movie seems a little too short to me, for what it's trying to do, and at times spreads itself too thin. It's at various points a crime film, a romance, a mystery, an action picture and a psychological study. The actors, Ryan in particular, are outstanding. No one could play a brooding loser like he could. His emotional outbursts early on feel almost psychotic. Later, mellowed out in the frozen north (irony of ironies!), his vulnerable side begins to emerge, and he becomes sympathetic to us, and eventually empathetic toward the woman. One senses his cluelessness about what's happening in him emotionally, as we, the audience, get it, and he doesn't. He's almost fragile trying to deal with tender feelings, especially since if he messes up or things go wrong he can't very well punch his way out of this one.