A big-city cop is reassigned to the country after his superiors find him too angry to be an effective policeman. While on his temporary assignment he assists in a manhunt of a suspected murderer.
Ida Lupino Robert Ryan Ward Bond Charles Kemper Anthony Ross Ed Begley Ian Wolfe Sumner Williams Gus Schilling Frank Ferguson Cleo Moore Olive Carey Richard Irving Patricia Prest Frank Arnold Vince Barnett Leslie Bennett A.I. Bezzerides Eddie Borden John Breen William Challee Bud Cokes G. Pat Collins Jimmy Conlin Joe Devlin Homer Dickenson Don Dillaway Art Dupuis Jim Drum
Odio en el alma, Neve rossa, La Maison dans l'ombre, La casa en la sombra, Επικίνδυνο Μονοπάτι, 危险边缘, Cinzas Que Queimam, На опасна земя, 어둠 속에서, 危険な場所で
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Cincinnati, Ohio
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France
France
USA
In many ways a hopeful rework of all the paranoid alienation of In a Lonely Place in pulpier genre terms. Ray’s romanticism and empathy put to great use. The film main subject matter, the thin line between caring too much and not caring at all doubles as an appreciation of Ray’s own work method. Indeed, the film most astonishing feature, those 20 minutes between the moment Ryan shows up in front of Lupino’s door and she leaving to go look after her brother the next morning, are some of the best modulated drama in all movies. And what else can I say? The manner in which Ray builds from Lupino’s blindness to how Ryan learns to actually experience another person, some things just defeat our words.
I knew I was going to love this right from the start. Sometimes I just get that feeling; everything seems right.
This is a film of two parts, the first being an excellent study of the dark heart of the city. It's a beautiful start, like a textbook of noir, with some great dialogue too. It shows Robert Ryan's character struggling with loneliness, rage, and rank cynicism, drowning in the darker side of human nature that he comes into contact with every day - and with nothing and no-one in his life to act as counterweight, he's sinking fast. Getting handy with his fists one too many times, he's packed off to deal with a murder case in the country…
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Two distinct halves make On Dangerous Ground so unwieldy and yet very much a fascinating outlier. The first section is textbook Noir, rowdy and loose and often impenetrable in its shadows. But it's the loneliness that paves the way for the second movement, with its stark snowy landscapes finding a slice of vulnerability, and ultimately romantic catharsis. Pretty lovely, although what makes it distinct is also what kept me at arm's length.
Action! - Female 4 Front: Breaking Grounds With Ida Lupino
For some reason, Wikipedia cites this as Ida's unofficial directing debut, despite the fact that her involvement appears to be little and she only stepped in when Nicholas Ray was unavailable. Despite the obvious evidence to the contrary. Regardless, the picture benefits from strong direction, photography, and storytelling that make it feel ahead of its time. This is especially true of the film's excellent wide shots, which give the impression of a larger scope than the budget would suggest. Bernanrd Hermann, who goes to town on the score, raises the stakes even further by creating a soundscape that, once again, will inspire the same grandiosity as later masterpieces like North…
What an amazing film! It opens with a gun in a holster being handed to a cop by his wife; cut to the next scene, a cop being helped to dress with his wife and kids in his room; cut to the next scene, Robert Ryan gets dressed alone. It feels simply like a montage of men-getting-ready-for-the-job, but in fact says everything about Ryan's violence and the loneliness it comes from. The movie is like pulp poetry, and Ryan's move from the rain-slicked city to the snow-strewn country in a quest to regain trust in humanity and absolve the rage and loneliness in himself becomes a journey of mythic quality rarely evoked in noir. Also, surprisingly, features one of the best Bernard Herrmann scores he has ever done, so good in fact that a lovely tragic-romantic cue is reused in his score for Marnie.
was not at all prepared for 5% crime and 95% absolutely devastating romance, but this cliche tough guy's character arc is a beautiful, vital thing that i never knew i always wanted out of a noir
Robert Ryan is, fundamentally, a physical actor. Even as he sometimes struggles to sell the words he's asked to recite, or to fully engage with characters he's asked to sell, his face and his body are enormously reliable storytelling tools. And, in Nicholas Ray's On Dangerous Ground, it's those things that make the movie's central relationship -- between Ryan's brutal, desperate cop (Jim Brent) and Ida Lupino's brittle, saintly blind girl (Mary Maiden) -- work.
Even before he figures out that she's blind, the way Jim watches Mary diverges entirely from the man he's been to this point in the movie. In the city, we saw him interact with two women: the first, he flirted with then turned away, angrily…
"All we ever see is crooks, murderers, winos, stoolies, dames. All with an angle. You get so you think everybody's like that. 'Til you find out different, it's kind of a lonely life."
Noirvember #11
The snow never stops falling, the void never fills - not without the passage of time and the changing of circumstance.
Whether living in Manhattan or in the rural hills of upstate New York, Detective Jim Wilson (Robert Ryan) and Mary Malden (Ida Lupino) each hide behind a defensive shell. They've allowed themselves to feel emotion, but not as profoundly as they truly wish; can't afford for their tenderness to bubble too high to the surface by letting their guards down. Only tragedy could bring…
on dangerous ground begins as a shady, suffocating film noir in the big city. and to the surprise of no one, it's another terrific foray into the genre from ray. with the accompaniment of bernard herrmann's fantastic score and george e. diskant's claustrophic cinematography, ray conjures an effective, formalistic noir with an infectious kineticism. it's the oppressive nature of the first half that allows the second to work so well, as we travel from the confines of the city to the serene landscapes of the countryside. it's this switch of scenery that becomes almost a shift of genre too. a killer still may be on the loose, but this is where on dangerous ground becomes a sweeping fable on moral…
A sufficient, moody noir where steam rises from pavements of the seedy city streets. The opening third has a style to it: world weary cops bust their way through case after case, the repetition sold to the viewer as crime blends into crime. Every step feels like an echo of a previous one, every visit to a locale feels like a return to a known haunt.
And, while I admire this, the execution is uninvolving. Our lead doesn't quite have the presence needed; the noir dialogue feels a bit too forced; the tropes feel as trodden as the pavements. Narratively, there's a slight divergence but the expression is one of familiarity.
Then comes the violence. Our lead is a brutal…
The irredeemable man meets the incorruptible woman. Nicholas Ray has gotta juice it, so Ida Lupino’s Mary is a blind saint, Robert Ryan’s Jim is a violent cop, and Bernard Hermann’s score is the sound of her reaching him.
In the first half of On Dangerous Ground, Jim pummels perps in dark alleys. He has no personal life, and his rage endangers his professional one. He gets exiled to an assignment in the country, to track down a small town killer.
City streets yield to the bright snowy countryside, where a posse hunts Mary’s mentally ill brother. When Jim questions Mary, the darkness inside her house becomes poignant instead of threatening, a symbol of her vulnerability. Lupino is the antithesis…
I wasn’t entirely sure what to make of this one. It is very much a movie of two halves—the first a dark and grimy urban noir procedural; the second a day-lit, frenetically-paced chase thriller through snowy, mountain terrain. These two “acts” operate in stark contrast to one another and pursue largely isolated narratives. The first follows our protagonist, a cynical detective named Jim Wilson (Robert Ryan), as he strong-arms his way about a case to track down two cop killers; roughing up witnesses and suspects and showing very little humanity or remorse for his uncompromising actions. The second sees him reprimanded for his heavy-handed methods and subsequently reassigned to a case “up-state” to track down the killer of a recently…
