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On Dangerous Ground
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Wikipedia article
'On Dangerous Ground' is a 1951 film noir directed by Nicholas Ray (and an uncredited Ida Lupino), produced by John Houseman, and starring Lupino and Robert Ryan. The screenplay was written by A. I. Bezzerides based on the 1945 novel 'Mad with Much Heart,' by Gerald Butler.
Plot
Bitter and cynical police detective Jim Wilson is known for beating information out of suspects and witnesses. After Wilson ignores the chief's warnings, he is relegated to a case up-state so that he might cool off. He joins a manhunt for the murderer of a young girl. The posse is led by Walter Brent, the father of the victim, who is determined to exact deadly vengeance. During a chase after the murderer is spotted, Wilson and Brent are separated from the others and track the killer to a remote house.
They find Mary Malden, a blind woman, by herself in the house. They learn that she lives with her brother, Danny. Wilson is drawn to the selfless Mary and when he learns that the killer is her brother and is mentally ill, he agrees to her request that he protect him from Brent and arrest him peacefully.
Mary secretly knows that Danny is hiding in the storm cellar. She tries to make him understand that Wilson is a friend to them and will take Danny away to be helped. On her way back to the house, Wilson confronts her. As she is explaining her brother's mental state, Danny flees the cellar.
Wilson trails Danny to a secluded shack and manages to calmly engage him in conversation. Danny rambles about the details of the murder while Wilson slowly advances and prepares to capture him. Brent then bursts in and a fight ensues between the two men. Brent's gun fires during the struggle and Danny escapes. Wilson and Brent chase Danny up a rugged mountainside, where Danny loses his footing and falls to his death. Brent carries his body to the home of a neighbor of Mary's, remorseful after realizing Danny's youth. Mary arrives, having walked from her home after hearing the gunshot. She absolves Wilson of responsibility and they walk back to her house. Wilson indicates he would like to stay with her but she insists he leave.
Wilson drives to the city as a changed man. Remembering her words about loneliness, he returns to Mary and they embrace.
Cast
* Ida Lupino as Mary Malden
* Robert Ryan as Jim Wilson
* Ward Bond as Walter Brent
* Charles Kemper as Pop Daly
* Anthony Ross as Pete Santos
* Ed Begley as Capt. Brawley
* Ian Wolfe as Sheriff Carrey
* Sumner Williams as Danny Malden
* Gus Schilling as Lucky
* Frank Ferguson as Willows
* Cleo Moore as Myrna Bowers
* Olive Carey as Mrs. Brent
Reception
Critical response
'New York Times' film critic Bosley Crowther found the screenplay a failure that produced poor performances. He wrote, "the story is a shallow, uneven affair, as written by A. I. Bezzerides from Gerald Butler's 'Mad With Much Heart.' The cause of the cop's sadism is only superficially explained, and certainly his happy redemption is easily and romantically achieved. And while a most galling performance of the farmer is given by Ward Bond, Ida Lupino is mawkishly stagey as the blind girl who melts the cop's heart. For all the sincere and shrewd direction and the striking outdoor photography, this R. K. O. melodrama fails to traverse its chosen ground."
Critic Dennis Schwartz liked the film and acting in the drama and wrote in 2005, "A schematic film noir by Nicholas Ray ('They Live by Night') that overcomes its artificial contrivances to become a touching psychological drama about despair and loneliness--one of the best of this sort in the history of film noir... Robert Ryan's fierce performance is superb, as he's able to convincingly assure us he has a real spiritual awakening; while Lupino's gentle character acts to humanize the crime fighter, who has walked on the "dangerous ground" of the city and has never realized before that there could be any other kind of turf until meeting someone as profound and tolerant as Mary."[http://www.sover.net/~ozus/ondangerousground.htm Schwartz, Dennis] . 'Ozus' World Movie Reviews,' film review, January 30, 2005. Last accessed: January 30, 2008.
Fernando F. Croce, film critic for 'Slant' magazine, admired the film and wrote in 2006, "Perched between late-'40s noir and mid-'50s crime drama, this is one of the great, forgotten works of the genre... Easily mushy, the material achieves a nearly transcendental beauty in the hands of Ray, a poet of anguished expression: The urban harshness of the city is contrasted with the austere snowy countryside for some of the most disconcertingly moving effects in all film noir. Despite the violence and the steady intensity, a remarkably pure film."[http://www.slantmagazine.com/film/features/bnoir.asp Croce, Fernando F]. 'Slant' magazine, film review, 2006. Last accessed: January 30, 2008.
Music
The film score was composed by Bernard Herrmann (19111975). Instrumentation: piccolo, 3 flutes, 2 oboes, an English horn, 2 clarinets, bass clarinet, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 8 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, bass drum, tam-tam, bell plate, piano, solo viola d'amore and strings.
Herrmann wanted to use an obscure baroque instrument, the viola d'amore, to symbolize Mary Malden's isolation and loneliness. The sound of the instrument can be heard much of the time she is on-screen. Herrmann was so impressed with viola d'amorist Virginia Majewski's performance that he wanted her credited in the film. Nicholas Ray told him "There aren't enough cards," so Herrmann replied, "Put her on mine." In the film's opening credits, Bernard Herrmann's credit reads, "Music by Bernard Herrmann Viola d'Amour played by Virginia Majewski."Roland Kato, Interview with Virginia Majewski, Newsletter of the Viola d'amore Society of America, Volume 19, Number 2, 1995.
At the 35:25 mark, listeners can hear a sequence that Herrmann reused in 1957 as the well-known opening theme to the television series 'Have Gun Will Travel' starring Richard Boone. The scoring in the film version is only slightly different from that in the better-known TV theme; the sequence in which this theme appears also contains other fragments of incidental music later adapted for use in the TV show.
References
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