Side Street (1950)

User Rating:

7.1/10   

Director:

Anthony Mann

Writer:

Sydney Boehm (writer)

Release Date:

23 March 1950 (USA)

Genre:

Crime | Film-Noir | Drama

Tagline:

Where temptation lurks!

Plot:

A struggling young father-to-be gives in to temptation and impulsively steals money from the office of a shady lawyer - with catastrophic consequences.

Plot Keywords:

Cheap Hotel | Cab Driver | Greenwich Village New York | Strangled To Death | Central Park New York

Cast

Farley Granger	...	Joe Norson
Cathy O'Donnell	...	Ellen Norson
James Craig	...	George Garsell / Mr. Howard
Paul Kelly	...	Capt. Walter Anderson
Jean Hagen	...	Harriette Sinton (singer at Les Artises)
Paul Harvey	...	Emil Lorrison
Edmon Ryan	...	Victor Backett
Charles McGraw	...	Det. Stan Simon
Edwin Max	...	Nick Drumman / Stevenson (as Ed Max)
Adele Jergens	...	Lucille 'Lucky' Colner
Harry Bellaver	...	Larry Giff (cabdriver)
Whit Bissell	...	Harold Simpson (chief teller)
John Gallaudet	...	Gus Heldon (bar owner)
Esther Somers	...	Mrs. Malby (Ellen's mother)
Harry Antrim	...	Mr. Malby (Ellen's father)
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Gail Bonney	...	Woman (uncredited) (voice)
Margaret Brayton	...	Woman clerk (uncredited)
John Butler	...	Elevator man (uncredited)
Frank Conlan	...	Night elevator operator (uncredited)
Ben Cooper	...	Young man at cleaners (uncredited)
Marie Crisis	...	Headwaitress (uncredited)
George David	...	Syrian proprietor (uncredited)
Peter DeBear	...	Tommy Drumman Jr. (Nick's nephew) (uncredited)
Anthony Dexter	...	Radio clerk (uncredited)
Jack Diamond	...	Bum (uncredited)
King Donovan	...	Det. Gottschalk (uncredited)
Helen Eby-Rock	...	Mother (uncredited)
Kathryn Givney	...	Nurse Carter (uncredited)
Edmund Glover	...	Fingerprint expert (uncredited)
Eula Guy	...	Policewoman Florence (uncredited)
Don Haggerty	...	Rivers (uncredited)
William Hansen	...	Dr. Harry Sternberg (uncredited)
Bee Humphries	...	Mrs. Farnol (uncredited)
Brett King	...	Pigeon man (uncredited)
Nolan Leary	...	Doorman at Mr. Lorrison's apartment (uncredited)
Norman Leavitt	...	Bartender (uncredited)
Margie Liszt	...	Woman (voice) (uncredited)
Ellen Lowe	...	Mrs. Rivers (uncredited)
George Lynn	...	Frank (police lab technician) (uncredited)
Robert Malcolm	...	Charlie (reporter) (uncredited)
Paul Marion	...	Dave (reporter) (uncredited)
John Maxwell	...	Police monitor (uncredited)
Charles McAvoy	...	Bank guard (uncredited)
Tom McElhaney	...	News vendor (uncredited)
W.P. McWatters	...	Tommy Drummon Jr. (uncredited)
Lynn Millan	...	Les Artises hatcheck girl (uncredited)
Ralph Montgomery	...	Milkman (uncredited)
Alberto Morin	...	Ismot Kimal (uncredited)
James O'Neill	...	Priest (uncredited)
Ollie O'Toole	...	Voice (uncredited) (voice)
John Phillips	...	Detective (uncredited)
Angi O. Poulis	...	Ahmed (uncredited)
Ralph Riggs	...	Proprietor at cleaners (uncredited)
William Ruhl	...	Manny (reporter) (uncredited)
Sarah Selby	...	Second Nurse (uncredited)
Ransom M. Sherman	...	Super at Lucky's apartment building (uncredited)
Dan Terranova	...	Patrolman (uncredited)
Peter M. Thompson	...	Mickey (policeman) (uncredited)
Sid Tomack	...	Louie, Waiter at Les Artises (uncredited)
George Tyne	...	Det. Roffman (uncredited)
Minerva Urecal	...	Garsell's landlady (uncredited)
Joe Verdi	...	Vendor (uncredited)
Herb Vigran	...	Photographer (uncredited)
Mildred Wall	...	Mrs. Glickburn (uncredited)
Ruth Warren	...	Lucky's housekeeper (uncredited)
James Westerfield	...	Charlie (Cop Joe chats with) (uncredited)
David Wolfe	...	Smitty (uncredited)

Directed by
Anthony Mann

Writing credits (in alphabetical order)
Sydney Boehm		writer

Produced by
Sam Zimbalist	....	producer

Original Music by
Lennie Hayton

Cinematography by
Joseph Ruttenberg

Film Editing by
Conrad A. Nervig

Art Direction by
Daniel B. Cathcart
Cedric Gibbons

Set Decoration by
Edwin B. Willis

Makeup Department
Jack Dawn	....	makeup artist
Sydney Guilaroff	....	hair stylist

Production Management
Charles J. Hunt	....	unit manager (uncredited)

Art Department
Charles DeCrof	....	associate set decorator

Sound Department
Douglas Shearer	....	recording supervisor
Charles E. Wallace	....	sound (uncredited)

Special Effects by
A. Arnold Gillespie	....	special effects

Stunts
Carey Loftin	....	stunts (uncredited)
Frank McGrath	....	stunts (uncredited)

Camera and Electrical Department
Sam Manatt	....	still photographer (uncredited)
Leo Monlon	....	grip (uncredited)

Other crew
Don McDougall	....	script supervisor (uncredited)
Annick Rougerie	....	(press attache France 2005 re-release ) (uncredited)

Production Companies

• Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)

Distributors

• Les Acacias (2005) (France) (theatrical) (re-issue)
• Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) (1951) (France) (theatrical)
• Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) (195?) (Italy) (theatrical)
• Warner Home Video (2007) (USA) (theatrical)
• Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) (1972) (USA) (TV) (network premiere)
• Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)
• Warner Home Video (2007) (USA) (DVD)

Runtime:

83 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English | Turkish

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Sound System)

Certification:

France:U | USA:Approved (certificate #13954) | Sweden:15

Filming Locations:

32nd Street and First Avenue, Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA

Company:

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)

Trivia:

French visa # 104222.

Quotes:

[first lines]
Capt. Walter Anderson: New York City: an architectural jungle where fabulous wealth and the deepest squalor live side by side. New York is the busiest, the loneliest, the kindest, and the cruelest of cities - a murder a day, every day of the year and each murder will wind up on my deak.

Movie Connections:

Featured in Side Street: Where Temptation Lurks (2007) (V)

Soundtrack:

EASY TO LOVE

Granger as flawed Everyman caught up in an urban vortex

A dazzling aerial shot taken high above the Empire State Building opens Anthony Mann's Side Street, and, throughout the movie, glimpses of that New York obelisk recur – sometimes dark and menacing, sometimes caught at the vanishing point of an urban canyon. It's a subtle image of the wide gulf on a narrow island between the pride and power of the haves and the borderline, hand-to-mouth lives of the have-nots for whom it's a distant and alien totem.

War veteran Farley Granger tries to make ends meet by shouldering a mail bag part-time; he and his pregnant wife Cathy O'Donnell (the pair reunited from the previous year's They Live By Night) live in a bedroom of his folks' railroad flat. Delivering one day to a shyster lawyer (Edmon Ryan), he spots a few big bills strewn carelessly about; the next, when he finds the office empty, he succumbs to temptation, only to find that the couple of hundred he thought he copped is really about $30-grand. Out of his depth, he wraps up the cash and gives it to a bartender to keep, while he checks into a fleabag hotel to think things out.

The money's a payoff in Ryan's blackmail racket, whose chief lure is Adele Jergens (misnamed `Lucky,' as she's soon fished out of the river). When Granger decides to come clean and return the money, Ryan denies all knowledge of it (it could link him to Jergen's murder). But he sets his loose cannon of a goon (James Craig) to retrieve the cash any way he can. Granger finds that his trusty barkeep has absconded with his package; when he tracks him down, he finds him dead, too.

A cadre of police assigned to the murder (Charles McGraw and Paul Stewart among them) thinks Granger's the prime suspect, so he has to turn sleuth to clear himself. His trail leads him to a Village dive where one of the numbers in Craig's little black book (Jean Hagen) croons `Easy to Love....'

Side Street hews to the classic noir narrative of the average guy caught up in dark forces he can neither understand nor control, and Granger gives it one of his finer performances, perplexed and terrified at what he's unleashed. And while O'Donnell's role is conventional and secondary, Hagen gives her brief sequence as a boozy moth drawn to a fatal flame a poignant spark (Jergens, platinumed and sequined, does her even briefer sequence proud).

To the extent that Mann indulges in social comment, he leaves it to be inferred (the same year, Granger appeared in the far more explicitly leftist Edge of Doom). At the end, the shots of the opening are rhymed with an eagle-eyed view of a police chase through the deserted streets of lower Manhattan early on a Sunday morning. It's a Bullitt-like ending for a movie that, while gripping, shows far more texture and nuance than Bullitt.