On Dangerous Ground (1951)
Director: Nicholas Ray
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
A superb noir thriller with a difference. Ray's second film with producer John Houseman (the first being They Live By Night) starts off in the sinister urban jungle, with Ryan's cop increasingly brutalised by the 'garbage' he is forced to deal with. Finally, his methods become so violent that he is sent to cool off in snowy upstate New York, where his search for a sex killer brings him into contact with Lupino's blind woman and her mentally retarded brother (Williams). It's a film about the violence within us all, about the effects of environment and family upon character (Lupino, peaceful and a healing force, even has a tree in her living room), and about the spiritual redemption of a fallen man. If it sometimes seems a little schematic, there is no denying the power of the performances (Ryan in particular is ferociously effective, a true precursor to Siegel's Dirty Harry), nor the eloquence of Ray's poetic but tough direction. Aided enormously by George Diskant's high contrast camerawork and by Bernard Herrmann's stunning score, which emphasises the hunt motif in Ryan's quest, it's a film of frequent brilliance.Author: GA
Cast & crew
Director: Nicholas Ray
Producer: John Houseman
Cast: Robert Ryan, Ida Lupino, Ward Bond, Ed Begley, Cleo Moore, Charles Kemper, Sumner Williams full cast
Genre(s): Film Noir
Duration: 80 mins
Most popular on this site
Features
Street fighting men
BAM celebrates John Carpenter’s sci-fi-inflected rage against the machine.
Zoom in:
<em>They Live'</em>s Roddy Piper
The American experience
British comedian Steve Coogan gets in touch with his inner Yank in <em>Hamlet 2.</em>
Spanish intuition
Scarlett Johansson and Rebecca Hall flirt away an Iberian summer in <em>Vicky Cristina Barcelona.</em>
Shadows and frogs
Crime pays in Film Forum’s expansive French noir series.
Strip tease
IFC’s new midnight-movie series revisits Hollywood’s groovy ’60s scene.
To air is human
<em>Man on Wire,</em> a new doc about a surreal Manhattan morning, aims high.




What do you think?
Post your review now