On Dangerous Ground

On Dangerous Ground
On Dangerous Ground
	Gerald Butler
Produced by	John Houseman
Starring	Ida Lupino; Robert Ryan; Ward Bond
Cinematography	George E. Diskant
Edited by	Roland Gross
Music by	Bernard Herrmann
Distributed by	RKO Radio Pictures
Release date	December 17, 1951 (United States);
Running time	82 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English

On Dangerous Ground is a 1951

Gerald Butler

.

Plot

Embittered inner-city police detective Jim Wilson is known for beating information out of suspects and witnesses alike. After Wilson ignores his chief's warnings, he is relegated to a case up-state to cool off. He joins a manhunt pursuing the murderer of a young girl, and teams up with Walter Brent, the father of the victim. who is determined to exact deadly vengeance. After chasing a man they spot, Wilson and Brent get separated from the rest of the manhunt and track the suspect to a remote house.

They find Mary Malden, a blind woman, by herself in the house. She tells Wilson and Brent that she lives with her younger brother, Danny. Wilson learns that Danny is the killer, and that he is mentally disadvantaged. Mary asks Wilson to protect her brother and he agrees to capture him peacefully. Wilson at Brent spend the night at the house.

At dawn Mary slips out and goes to the storm cellar where Danny is hiding. She tells him that Wilson is a friend and will take him away to be helped. On her way back in Wilson confronts her, and as she explains to him that her brother is frightened, Danny flees the cellar.

Wilson trails Danny to a secluded shack and engages him in conversation. Danny rambles about not wanting to kill the girl while Wilson slowly advances and prepares to seize him. Brent bursts in and the two men brutally struggle. Brent's gun goes off during the struggle and Danny escapes.

The men chase Danny up a rugged stone outcropping, where Danny loses his footing and falls to his death. Brent carries his body to the nearest home, a neighbour of Mary's. Having walked from her home after hearing the gunshot, Mary arrives. Later, she and Wilson walk back to her house. Wilson indicates he would like to stay with her but she insists he leave. Wilson drives back to the city, but he's a changed man. In the end, he returns to Mary.

Cast

Ida Lupino as Mary Malden
Robert Ryan as Jim Wilson
Ward Bond as Walter Brent
Charles Kemper as Pop Daly
Anthony Ross as Pete Santos
Ed Begley as Capt. Brawley
Ian Wolfe as Sheriff Carrey
Sumner Williams as Danny Malden
Gus Schilling as Lucky
Frank Ferguson as Willows
Cleo Moore as Myrna Bowers
Olive Carey as Mrs. Brent

Reception

Critical response

Contemporary

New York Times film critic Bosley Crowther was highly critical. He found the screenplay a failure that produced poor performances, writing, "the story is a shallow, uneven affair, as written by A. I. Bezzerides from Gerald Butler's Mad With Much Heart. The cause of the cop's sadism is only superficially explained, and certainly his happy redemption is easily and romantically achieved. And while a most galling performance of the farmer is given by Ward Bond, Ida Lupino is mawkishly stagey as the blind girl who melts the cop's heart. For all the sincere and shrewd direction and the striking outdoor photography, this R. K. O. melodrama fails to traverse its chosen ground."^[3]

Modern critic Dennis Schwartz liked the film and acting in the drama and wrote in 2005, "Robert Ryan's fierce performance is superb, as he's able to convincingly assure us he has a real spiritual awakening; while Lupino's gentle character acts to humanize the crime fighter, who has walked on the "dangerous ground" of the city and has never realized before that there could be any other kind of turf until meeting someone as profound and tolerant as Mary."[4]

Fernando F. Croce, film critic for

Slant magazine, admired the film and wrote in 2006, "Perched between late-'40s noir and mid-'50s crime drama, this is one of the great, forgotten works of the genre... Easily mushy, the material achieves a nearly transcendental beauty in the hands of Ray, a poet of anguished expression: The urban harshness of the city is contrasted with the austere snowy countryside for some of the most disconcertingly moving effects in all film noir. Despite the violence and the steady intensity, a remarkably pure film."^[5]

Music

The film score was composed by

Have Gun Will Travel

, as well as other fragments of incidental music later adapted for use in the TV show.

Herrmann wanted to use an obscure baroque instrument, the viola d'amore, to symbolize Mary Malden's isolation and loneliness. The sound of the instrument can be heard much of the time she is on-screen.^[6] It was performed by Virginia Majewski, who received a screen credit for her contribution.

References

^ "Symphony and Concert -- Records". The Boston Globe. December 16, 1951.
^ "Ida Lupino, Robert Ryan In Star Roles". The Christian Science Monitor. December 18, 1951. Archived from the original on March 4, 2016. Retrieved November 7, 2013.
^ Crowther, Bosley (February 13, 1952). "'On Dangerous Ground,' Story of Detective Turned Sadist, Opens at the Criterion". The New York Times. Retrieved February 8, 2024.
^ Schwartz, Dennis (January 30, 2005). "On Dangerous Ground". Ozus' World Movie Reviews. Archived from the original on June 9, 2008. Retrieved January 30, 2008.
^ "B Noir". Slant Magazine. May 5, 2006. Retrieved November 7, 2022.
^ Kato, Roland (1995). "Interview with Virginia Majewski". Newsletter of the Viola d'amore Society of America. 19 (2).