La maison dans l'ombre

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.

Director Nicholas Ray really knew how to give film noir a unique edge. 'In a Lonely Place (1950),' which starred Humphrey Bogart and Gloria Grahame, was a brooding study of trust and paranoia, thematically similar in some ways to Billy Wilder's 'Sunset Blvd. (1950),' though more overt in its exploration of Hollywood's failings. Likewise, 'On Dangerous Ground (1952)' presented such an curious interpretation of noir that RKO wasn't sure what to do with it, and the film collected dust on a shelf for two years. Indeed, thematically, the film might even be considered a separate progression from the film noir style, a form of cinematic purification that serves to cleanse a decade of seedy, cynical decadence in the American film industry. The hard-edged squalor of inner-city crime gives way to a liberating expanse of trees and snow, revealing an incidence of crime, certainly, but also, and more importantly, a fresh and cathartic sense of nobility that is not to be found in the urban back-streets.

Robert Ryan is terrific as Jim Wilson, a city cop who's been on the Force for eleven years, after which he has become bitter, lonely and completely disillusioned. Whereas his colleagues, having found stability in their families, are able to leave their work behind at the end of every shift, Jim returns home each night seething with the rottenness of city life. In his futile efforts to scourge the streets of scum, he has become those whom he despises, and has a tendency to unexpectedly explode with violence. Nicholas Ray, who would later give a resounding voice to teenage angst in 'Rebel Without a Cause (1955),' here captures perfectly the pressure and frustration of Jim Wilson's occupation, and the horror when he suddenly realises what he has driven to become: "Why do you make me do it? You know you're gonna talk! I always make you punks talk!" This seedy urban nightmare has the grittiness equal to any film noir of the era, and Bernard Hermann's pounding score lends a fierce intensity.

Then – against all expectations – 'On Dangerous Ground' takes a dramatic narrative turn. Jim, in order to cool off, is assigned to a murder case in the snow-strewn countryside upstate. A young girl has been killed, and her father (Ward Bond) has pledged to murder the man responsible. Almost immediately, the pair strike out in pursuit of the accused perpetrator, and their frantic chase ends at the home of a lonely blind woman, Mary Malden (Ida Lupino, who also directed a few scenes after Ray fell ill). Jim's interactions with Mary inevitably lead him towards some sort of redemption, but I was struck most profoundly by their earlier conversations, particularly when Mary thanks Jim for his compassion in not showing any pity towards her. This moment illustrated so poignantly, I think, how far from humanity Jim has allowed himself to drift: his reaction to Mary's condition was not borne from any compassion or kindness, but rather from his lack of it; he long ago abandoned the ability to feel pity for another person.

Though 82 minutes to perhaps too brief a running time to present such a drastic character turn-around, the mid-film tonal shift is otherwise handled very well. George E. Diskant's claustrophobic camera-work, which made dynamic use of hand-held photography, becomes slower and more contemplative, and Herrmann's score similarly tones down into the mournful melody of Virginia Majewski's viola da gamba. Jim's tentative partnership with the murder victim's mutinous father allows him to acknowledge his duty as a police detective, providing an avenue through which he can evade his violent compulsions. The trust and kindness demonstrated by the blind Mary also permits him to recognise the overwhelming goodness of human beings, and even a certain element of sympathy to be found in the acts of a criminal. Though Nicholas Ray originally wished to end the film on more of a downbeat note, the studio enforced an optimistic ending. Nevertheless, I liked that 'On Dangerous Ground' acts as a counterpoint to the inescapable doom in most film-noirs; that a soul as disillusioned as Jim Wilson can ultimately uncover salvation is a reassuring thought in today's crazy world.

'On Dangerous Ground' is a very original and striking movie, one of the most interesting to come out of 1950s Hollywood. The movie is in two halves. The first is urban and sees Robert Ryan play Jim Wilson a brutal but seemingly moral cop who appears to be on the brink of a complete breakdown. His character could well be the toughest cop ever seen on screen until the early 1970s heyday of Dirty Harry and Popeye Doyle,etc. The second half is rural, with Wilson being sent out of the city to investigate the murder of a young girl (shades almost of Stellan Skarsgard in 1997's 'Insomnia'). There he encounters a local blind woman (Ida Lupino), the sister of his number one suspect. The first half is as I said, extremely tough, the second half is ALMOST a mystery (yet it's obvious who the murderer is), and ALMOST a romance (but handled in a very subtle and "unHollywood" way). It's an odd combination but really works because the script lacks cliches, Nicholas "Rebel Without A Cause" Ray's direction is very fresh and inventive, and the acting is first rate. Lupino makes the most of her supporting role, as does Ward Bond ('The Searchers') as the father of the murdered girl, and Sumner Williams as Lupino's disturbed younger brother, but Robert Ryan steals the movie. I'm beginning to regard Ryan as one of the most underrated screen actors of all time. Just watch him in this, the boxing classic 'The Set-Up', 'Crossfire', 'Bad Day At Black Rock', and of course, 'The Wild Bunch' and see what I mean. 'On Dangerous Ground' deserves a much larger audience. Highly recommended.

"On Dangerous Ground" is a strange, schizophrenic film that straddles the fence between film noir and romantic melodrama, managing to be both and neither at the same time. It has the same otherworldly quality that director Nicholas Ray frequently brought to his films, but ultimately I'm not sure whether it's successful or not.

The first half of the film finds brutal cop Robert Ryan stomping around the mean streets of a dark, brooding city, his abusive approach to meting out punishment keeping him only one small step from becoming the kind of criminal he spends his time tracking down. These early scenes are the most fascinating ones in the film, though (or maybe because) they have really nothing to do with the film's main plot and are all about developing the character of Ryan. He cruises around dark streets, the camera placed in the back seat of his car, filming the passing street as he is seeing it, his eyes reflected in the rearview mirror (Martin Scorses borrowed this kind of shot for "Taxi Driver" perhaps?) What emerges is the portrait of an isolated and lonely man barely maintaining a grip on his sanity in the midst of an insane world.

But the second half of the film dissipates the claustrophobic tension of the city environment by sending Ryan out into the country to investigate the murder of a young girl. He stumbles into the home of a blind woman (played by Ida Lupino looking like Loretta Young) and strikes up a timid romance with her, her gentleness and trustworthy nature providing just the antidote his jaded sensibilities need. Will their romance work, or are the two worlds they're from too different? There's much of interest about the portion of the film set in the country. The idea that the kind of crime traditionally reserved for the back alleys of city slums could be working its way into the great nowhere had to have been an uncomfortable idea for post-war America. And the crazed, vengeful father of the murdered girl is a far cry from the simple, kind souls we like to think people the American heartland. And Ray creates a visual interest in the country scenes as well. The harsh, barren landscape looks like the surface of the moon, no more inviting than the sinister, shadowy city streets to which it's juxtaposed.

But I got bored with the romantic plot line, and felt it was out of place in a film like this. And the ending especially didn't sit well with me. It seemed much more likely that Ryan would return to the streets he knows so well and continue his lonely existence, rather than come back to the love of a good woman in a cozy cottage in the middle of nowhere. I felt cheated, and wished that the ending could have had the guts that the rest of the film did.

A fascinating film in its own right, but a flawed one. You can't watch it and not think of the opportunities missed.

Grade: B+

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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