On Dangerous Ground (1952)
On Dangerous Ground came in the middle of an astonishing string of masterworks from Ray, including In a Lonely Place (1950), The Lusty Men (1952), Johnny Guitar (1954), Rebel Without a Cause (1955), Bigger Than Life (1956) and Bitter Victory (1957).
Championed by Jean-Luc Godard and the other famous critics at Cahiers du Cinema, Ray was unique among Hollywood directors; he had a way of hammering through the most intense, unfiltered emotions. Even the stoic Humphrey Bogart comes across as open and fevered in In a Lonely Place. But more importantly, Ray understood unlike any other how to use the space around the characters as part of this emotional landscape. Think of the apartment courtyard in In a Lonely Place, the planetarium in Rebel Without a Cause or the hilltop hideout in Johnny Guitar. On Dangerous Ground does double duty in that capacity, opening in the big, violent city, with its dark alleyways and crooked stairwells, as cop Jim Wilson (Robert Ryan) searches for his latest suspect.
Surrounded by soft, family men -- one keeps a rose garden and another likes ice cream sundaes -- Wilson takes his work seriously and finds desperation taking hold. When an informer refuses to talk, Wilson proceeds to beat it out of him, but first asking, tremblingly, 'Why do you make me do it? You know you're gonna talk! I'm gonna make you talk! I always make you punks talk! Why do you do it? Why?!' Ryan specialized in these damaged types, calling forth a reservoir of burbling acid behind his square, stony exterior; he was the best at it. Perhaps because he was not much of a clear-cut hero type, he never earned the adoration and acclaim he deserved. But to think of anyone else in this role is inconceivable.
When Wilson's actions get him into trouble, his superiors send him on a mission out of town, upstate, to the snow-covered countryside, where a murderer is loose. Once there, he's teamed with an irate, shotgun-wielding farmer, Walter Brent (Ward Bond), the father of the murdered girl, who intends to kill the murderer.
Obviously, Wilson is torn between his own penchant for violence and sticking to the law, especially when he meets and interrogates the killer's beautiful, blind sister Mary Malden (Ida Lupino), who only knows her brother as a kind soul that helps her 'see' the world. Lupino is terrific, bringing her trademark intelligence and sadness to an otherwise gimmicky role. The part came near the beginning of her own directorial career (Never Fear, Outrage, Hard, Fast and Beautiful, etc.), and she reportedly took over the helm for a few days when Ray was ill.
Ray depicts Wilson's torment with an astonishing use of the snow-covered hillsides. Characters actually have to tromp through the icy sludge (it certainly does not look like a studio back lot). And when they enter Mary's home, with its many sculptures and driftwood samples, their bulky coats and boots tend to bowl over the house's delicate interior design.
If that's not enough, the movie is blessed with a musical score by the great Bernard Herrmann; some of which sounds like his future work with Hitchcock, but here it's refined for Ray's tastes, made softer or going completely quiet when the mood strikes. Rounding out a complete package is a screenplay by the great Turkish-born novelist and screenwriter A.I. Bezzerides, who also wrote Thieves Highway (1949), Track of the Cat (1954) and Kiss Me Deadly (1955). He was so influential that he has inspired two new (as yet unreleased) documentaries.
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On Dangerous Ground (1952)
Directed by Nicholas Ray. With Ida Lupino, Robert Ryan, Ward Bond. Visit IMDb for Photos, Showtimes, Cast, Crew, Reviews, Plot Summary, Comments,
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