Friday Night Movie Number 84 – ‘Where The Sidewalk Ends’

 

Another excellent and intriguing bit of film noir for you all again in the form of the 1950 movie staring Gene Tierney and Dana Andrews called ‘Where The Sidewalk Ends’.

The plot is centred around Det Sgt Mark Dixon a cop who didn’t want to be a criminal like his father but who also has a bit of a temper and a reputation for roughing up suspects. Passed over for promotion and demoted because of his record Dixon is given the job of investigating a stabbing of a punter Ted Morrison, at a dice game run by Tommy Scalise a notorious villain who Dixon suspects has been involved in all manner of crimes including the murder of Ted Morrison, Morrison was killed following an argument at the dice game with a man called Ken Paine .

DS Dixon whilst investigating the murder of Morrison visits Paine at his flat and hits Paine hard. Dixon didn’t know that Paine was suffering from the effects of an old injury that made him more fragile and Dixon’s punch kills Paine.

Dixon then tries to hide the body and fabricate a fake time line that placed Dixon somewhere else than in Paine’s flat. Dixon meets Morgan, Paine’s beautiful wife and falls in love with her but Dixon’s temper gets the better of him again leading to more cover ups.

This is a movie with an excellent, well written and engaging plot with believable but flawed characters. I enjoyed this movie, which was a recent discovery, very much and I hope that you enjoy it too.