THEN AND NOW: On Dangerous Ground
Each week, Alan Hermann introduces readers to classic films that are available for streaming. This week, a film noir that explores a troubled city cop who finds a new side in the country.
By Alan Herrmann
MOVIE CRITIC
there are many great films that fall under the category of film noir, and ever since the French coined the term there has been considerable discussion about what actually constitutes a true film noir. I’ve read a good deal on the subject and watched several films, but I’m not a purist when it comes to this category.
Noir is complicated, and too many critics try to tie it to a very specific type of film that must include black and white photography, lots of shadows, city locales, serious crimes — usually murder, a “fallen” average guy, a cynical outlook, and an unhappy ending. They also had to be filmed between 1940 and 1958.
Experts like their specific categories but let’s face it, they can be limiting. Many of my favorite noirs fall under these stricter codes, but I also love several that break the rules. Last week, I discussed The Sweet Smell of Success, which is a great noir even though it doesn’t check all the boxes. That’s because the key is not to check all the boxes, but to focus strongly on the ones that will grab your audience. They will be different from picture to picture.
Here is one of my favorite film noirs that doesn’t hit all the right notes but effectively uses the ones it chooses.
On Dangerous Ground (1952) was directed by Nicholas Ray, who was not afraid to look deep into his characters’ souls in order to find the love and goodness that was often too tangled up with darkness and violence. He made some extraordinary films under the noir banner including In a Lonely Place with Humphrey Bogart and Gloria Grahame, as well as They Live by Night and Born to be Bad.
My personal favorite noir directed by Ray is On Dangerous Ground, starring gruff-talking Robert Ryan and enchanting-eyed beauty, Ida Lupino. The film opens with a fast-moving cop car, siren screeching through the closed-in, nighttime streets of the city. Bernard Herrmann’s intense music score keeps pace with the frantic siren and screeching tires. The black and white photography picks up the deep contrast of tall dark buildings lit up by flashing neon lights. We are clearly in noir territory.
Ryan plays Jim Wilson, a New York detective, and a loner with no familial connections. His fellow police officers have tried to convince him that he needs companionship to help him forget the job after he comes home.
Jim lives alone in a tiny apartment and his whole existence is predicated upon the job. It’s more than dedication, it’s an obsession, a calling he both loves and hates. It affects his judgment and brings out a sadistic side that has Jim viciously beating suspects while uttering, “Why do you make me do it? You know you’re going to talk, so why?”
After being warned several times about his brutality towards suspects, Jim’s boss pulls him from regular duty and sends him upstate to assist in a manhunt in the northern countryside. This is where we see a clear shift in locale. The tall, dark buildings and blaring traffic sounds are replaced with a vast rural landscape, mostly fields and mountains covered with snow and slippery, treacherous roads winding through woods that surround the fields.
The scenery seems more conducive to a Western than a film noir. Here we find Walter (Ward Bond) a distraught and vengeful father, looking for the killer of his young daughter. His anger is so intense that he promises to shoot the culprit, no arrest, no questions asked.
Wilson joins the search and meets the suspect’s blind sister Mary (Ida Lupino) while inspecting their house. While Walter gruffly questions her about her brother’s whereabouts, Jim becomes irritated with Walter’s bullying behavior but is mesmerized by Mary and her ability to live alone with her troubled brother.
This is when we see a different Jim Wilson; not the angry, violent man who sees suspects as scum — Walter now fills that role — but someone who becomes compassionate towards this woman and her difficult situation.
For her part, Mary senses a troubled but good soul in Jim and their attraction becomes mutual. These two lonely individuals have found each other. But tragedy strikes when the brother is found, and Mary is devastated.
Wilson feels responsible for what is an unfortunate outcome. The case is finished, yet Jim feels even more drawn to Mary and the quiet countryside although he knows he must return to the violent and claustrophobic streets of New York. This seems like the end of the film, but it’s not. On Dangerous Ground has a compelling ending that will stay with you for a long time.
In 1952, Ida Lupino was at the top of her game after playing a wide variety of roles, including romantic leads and femme fatales. She wanted to direct movies as well and became one of the first female directors of note to make pictures with socially significant themes, many dealing with women’s struggles. Films like Outrage, which dealt with rape, and The Bigamist made audiences pay attention. Lupino was the first woman to direct a film noir, The Hitchhiker. She also directed several TV shows including the classic The Twilight Zone episode “The Masks.”
Robert Ryan was an underrated actor who played in a variety of films and TV programs but will be remembered most for his film noirs including Crossfire, Beware My Lovely, The Set-Up, Act of Violence and Clash by Night. Capable of explosive emotions from violence to cool, calculated dread or even tenderness and warmth, Ryan could play all these personalities. But more importantly, he could play all of them in one role.
Sure, this film breaks some rules. But the respect for the genre is still evident, and so is Nicholas Ray’s haunting vision of loneliness and anxiety. Ray would come back to these themes throughout his career in both crime and non-crime films. He would go on to make the great teenage angst film, Rebel without a Cause, which explored these themes for a whole new generation.
Local Obituaries
To view local obituaries or to send a note to family and loved ones, please visit the link that follows.
Support Award-winning, Locally Focused Journalism
The FXBG Advance cuts through the talking points to deliver both incisive and informative news about the issues, people, and organizations that daily affect your life. And we do it in a multi-partisan format that has no equal in this region. Over the past year, our reporting was:
First to break the story of Stafford Board of Supervisors dismissing a citizen library board member for “misconduct,” without informing the citizen or explaining what the person allegedly did wrong.
First to explain falling water levels in the Rappahannock Canal.
First to detail controversial traffic numbers submitted by Stafford staff on the Buc-ee’s project
Our media group also offers the most-extensive election coverage in the region and regular columnists like:
And our newsroom is led by the most-experienced and most-awarded journalists in the region — Adele Uphaus (Managing Editor and multiple VPA award-winner) and Martin Davis (Editor-in-Chief, 2022 Opinion Writer of the Year in Virginia and more than 25 years reporting from around the country and the world).
For just $8 a month, you can help support top-flight journalism that puts people over policies.
Your contributions 100% support our journalists.
Help us as we continue to grow!
This article is published under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND. It can be distributed for noncommercial purposes and must include the following: “Published with permission by FXBG Advance.”