Reviews

I just watched this movie on a long airplane flight, where I was desperate for entertainment, so my standards were pretty low. But even still, I have to agree with most reviewers that this movie was a mess. I call this "the kitchen sink" style of storytelling. (ie, throw in everything but the kitchen sink). Subplot was piled on after subplot, as if the filmmakers had no confidence in any of the story lines so just kept adding more. I was constantly confused as to whether I was supposed to be watching a family melodrama, revenge action film, weeper about cancer and Alzheimer's disease etc. The generic title "Crime Story" didn't help either.

Probably the biggest liability was that Dreyfuss, an actor I've always liked, was just totally unconvincing as an aging one-time crime boss. He never gives you the sense that he could've once been a menacing and powerful crime figure, even when younger. And as an old man, he comes across as more of cuddly grandfather type, and the scenes where he physically overcomes much younger men are a bit ludicrous.

The story of an elderly man, now facing death, having to come to terms with the mistakes of his sordid past might've had potential. But this film was muddled and misguided and a sad waste of some excellent acting talent.

Back stage musicals can be entertaining, giving us a taste of what goes into the making of a show, but this is a fairly unconvincing example of the genre. Virginia Mayo is beautiful of course, and a decent dancer, but she does not do her own singing. For film buffs it's fun to see her and Steve Cochrane teamed in a vehicle so different than "Best Years of Our Lives" or "White Heat." I'm sure Cochrane enjoyed the opportunity to play a departure from his usual gangster/tough guy role, but for me he's too rough hewn and macho to play a Broadway director. Since Gene Nelson was the top billed male star I expected him to have more lines of dialogue and figure into the plot (maybe as a rival to Cochrane for Virginia) but he was really just there to dance. If I were Cochrane I would've fired my agent for accepting third male billing behind Nelson and Frank Lovejoy, since he was by far the movie's leading man.

For me the revelation in the cast was Patricia Wymore. I knew that she was Errol Flynn's last wife, but I thought that was her one claim to fame. Here she demonstrates that besides being beautiful she was also a good actress and dancer. Right up until the weak and unconvincing ending, I was guessing that she would end up with Cochrane, and Virginia would end up with her adoring agent, played by Larry Keating. That would've been an interesting ending, but I'm giving the movie too much credit. It went for the obvious "happy ending," though in reality does anyone think that Cochrane and Mayos' relationship, based on what we've seen, has any future. Also, the New Haven reviews predict that the show will be failure, if it even opens in New York, but Cochrane and Mayo reunite so we're supposed to believe everything will be hunky dory. (I wasn't sure if this was intended as comedy, but I cracked up at the scene where Nelson is thrilled that a review calls him a "competent dancer." Competent. Wow, there's some extravagant praise.)

But perhaps the biggest problem with the movie is that while a major part of its running time is taken up with the alleged show's musical numbers, they're all pretty mediocre. As another reviewer mentioned, none of these numbers has any thematic or stylistic connection to each other. It seems like a musical review, rather than a coherent Broadway musical comedy. Was there actually a plot to this musical? It doesn't help that early in the movie a scene of male singers auditioning goes on forever, and is played strictly for laughs. None of the singers has even a ghost of a chance of getting a part, and they are ridiculed by Cochran. If you're going to be supposedly giving the audience a behind the scenes glimpse of a Broadway show, then it should be somewhat realistic, instead of coming across as a precursor to the audition scene in The Producers.

Well, I've been sounding really negative, but it's not like it's a terrible movie. I just think it had the potential to be better. (Even with songs written by a B or C list team). Of the WB musicals that Mayo appeared in with Gene Nelson, I don't think this is as good a Painting the Clouds With Sunshine. (Where Mayo was dubbed by Bonnie Williams, as in this movie and her other musicals). For me it goes down as a mildly entertaining oddity. Mayo and Cochrane together as romantic couple, with no gangsters, guns, or rub outs.

I understand that this movie is a feast for Joan Crawford fans, but I think that anyone who watches this objectively will conclude that she was too old for the part. I say that knowing I run the risk of being called shallow, sexist, and worse by the great ladies' devoted fans. But realistically, while at 46 she was still an attractive woman with a nice figure, she would not have had every guy she meets throwing themselves at her. Especially hardened gangster types who had their pick of any young show girl. The one believable relationship is with the shy, straight laced accountant played by Kent Smith. But in the scenes with young handsome Steve Cochrane it feels like he's coming on to his mother's friend, and it doesn't seem like he's the type who's looking for Mrs. Robinson. When I see a star actress miscast this way it feels like it's all a big ego exercise for her. And since the movie got made as a Joan Crawford vehicle, certainly no one was going to tell her she looked a bit silly. Other reviewers have said the story is based in part on Bugsy Siegel and Virginia Hill. But Hill was a young knock-out, not an attractive "mature woman." (I could totally see Susan Hayward, 33 at the time, or Rhonda Fleming, 27, in the part. But then it wouldn't have been a Joan vehicle).

That issue aside, it's a well made and interesting movie. As someone who's read quite a bit of mob history, I like that the story accurately portrayed how important mob accountants were. The only crime that many gangsters could ever be convicted of (including Al Capone) was income tax evasion. So a talented accountant was way more valuable to the criminal organization than the most vicious hood or gunman.

Joan's age aside, the only other quibble I had with the movie was the ambiguous ending. Does Joan live or die? I guess it's left to the viewer to decide. And if she lives, how does she go about rebuilding her life. (I half expected her long since ditched ex-husband to show up. Shades of Joan in Mildred Pierce, where she also lost a child.)

The plot machinations of the story require one of the all-time miscarriages of justice, when Bill (John Litel) is sentenced to life imprisonment on a charge of "premeditated" first degree murder for a punch thrown in anger upon discovering his wife in another man's hotel bungalow. From there on in, the story doesn't get any more logical.

I've never been a fan of Kay Francis, and find it hard to see the qualities that made her for several years the biggest female star in Hollywood. I guess there were a lot of people who liked to watch a woman suffer, which was her trademark. In this movie she does her fair share of suffering, though she does realize her theatrical ambitions to become the toast of the London stage.

As others have remarked, the ending is pretty nutty, but I guess this is what her fans expected. She forsakes any chance at personal happiness in order to be true to the promise to her husband she made 8 years earlier, and because of her guilt over having caused his imprisonment. But how could you believe that she would give up the stage career that meant so much to her? Or that no one in their small town would know she'd become a star? (Yes, there was no internet, but everyone read newspapers and magazines).

Sybil Jason, who plays the daughter is like Kay now widely forgotten, but in her day was second only to Shirley Temple in child star popularity. She has a weird distracting accent (she was born in South Africa) and some annoying affectations. In this story she's put through an emotional ringer similar to Kay's, having to find out that the woman who raised her isn't her mother, than being taken away from her. And then she has to be sworn to secrecy that Kay is a big star. Can any child really keep that secret? (And we never learn what happened to "Tim," who raised her. She just conveniently drops out of the story. Tim was played by Minna Gombell, usually a character actress but here with a pretty big part.)

Why couldn't she just tell Bill that she was now a successful actress? Wouldn't he want the financial security she could provide the family? What was he going to do to support the family after 8 years in prison? Well, I guess that's par for the course for Kay. Living a life of small town poverty with a man she doesn't love. More suffering.

There haven't been nearly as many rodeo films as boxing films, but both genres have some of the same appeal, to filmmakers and actors as well as audiences. Both are macho subcultures in which men's courage and determination are regularly tested. One pits man against man. The other, man against beast.

While both genres feature, by necessity, strong roles for male actors, there are occasionally some memorable parts for actresses, such as Audrey Totter in The Set-Up. In The Lusty Men it's actually Susan Hayward who is at the core of the movie, and arguably its leading character. Hayward gives a great performance, capturing all the nuances in what's a complex, well-written part. And she's a hoot giving her rival, a rodeo groupie, a kick in the butt, her way of "branding." I think this is maybe Hayward's best performance, as in her more famous roles, like in I'll Cry Tomorrow and I Want to Live, she tends to go in for chewing the scenery. Here, she gives a more subdued performance that really works. There are several other good women's parts in this movie, as we see the cameraderie among the wives and girl friends of the rodeo riders. But though Hayward finds friendship there, she becomes determined that she's not going to end up like one of them, living a gypsy life in trailer parks and being constantly in fear of seeing her man injured or losing him to booze or another woman. (Side note: Eleanor Dodd, who plays the vamp Hayward battles, gives a funny and sexy performance, yet after this she made only one more film. What happened?)

Mitchum is good as always when he's being Mitchum. Arthur Kennedy is a very good actor but I think he was miscast in this one. I just don't buy him as a burgeoning rodeo star. He usually plays intellectuals of one sort or another, and doesn't have a strong physical presence. He also seems a bit too old. Arthur Hunnicut is fun, playing essentially the same grizzled rodeo old timer he did in a less rodeo film, Born Reckless, starting Mamie Van Doren.

I did find the ending a bit pat, and can we really buy that after a sensational first season on the rodeo tour Kennedy is happy to give it up for the hard life of farming a tiny spread? How long before he'd been yearning for the applause (and rodeo groupies) again? Yes, I get it, he's seen his buddy killed, but it still didn't ring true to me.

By the way, just as boxing movies often show the downside of the sport by having characters who are washed-up or punch drunk ex-fighters, The Lusty Men may go even further. Pretty much all the rodeo veterans we see are emotionally and/or physically scarred, alcoholics, and cripples, barely eking out a living. (But those parties they throw sure look like fun!)

A couple of other notes. There is what I consider a pretty egregious editing error. In the scene where Mitchum is in the chute, ready to go out on his bucking bronco, there's a cut to the crowd, and when we cut back to the chute for a brief second there's a different man sitting on the horse, not Mitchum. No doubt a stunt rider. It's something you'd expect in an Ed Wood movie, not a Class A production. How did they miss that?

It was fun seeing a "young" Burt Mustin in a sizeable speaking role, and he does a good job in his extended scene with Mitchum. This was one of Mustin's first roles, and he was 67 at the time. He didn't make his first on-screen appearance until he was 66, then spent three more decades doing mostly small TV parts. Great story.

This is one of a small subgenre of the prison film about convicts who are redeemed by developing their singing gift while in stir. ("Weary River" is another.) What's strange about this story is that until the movie is almost half over we're given no inkling that Jerry Davis (Dick Foran) can sing. Though I guess you wouldn't be surprised if you know the actor from his singing cowboy pictures.

Though Davis is framed for a murder he didn't commit, I found myself not feeling overly sympathetic towards his plight, since we've been shown that he's a bully with a violent temper who never hesitates to throw the first punch. So even if he was framed, it's not unthinkable that his recklessness and propensity for throwing sucker punches might've gotten someone killed. It's a major flaw in this movie that being wrongly sent to prison doesn't transform Davis, as we see with Jimmy Cagney and Spencer Tracy in other prison movies. He's a jerk even before he goes to prison.

In short, you'll never mistake this for WB prison classics like Each Dawn I Die or 20,000 Years in Sing Sing, but it's an amiable way to pass some time, especially if you like B movies of the period. It features kind of an all-star B movie cast, if such a thing is possible, with Foran, Dick Purcell, and John Litell. The cast also includes the always dependable Ward Bond, and in the stock role of the loyal girlfriend, June Travis, one of a legion of blandly pretty brunette second second line actresses of the era who are now all but forgotten. (She appeared in 30 movies in just three years and retired at 24). Funny how she just happens to get a job working for the hood who framed her boyfriend. As in their few scenes together he acts like a jerk towards her, quickly ditching her to hang our with some hoods and their molls at the beach, I'm not at all sure why she's so devoted to him. Veda Ann Borg, a character actress who's often a scene stealer, is wasted here in a "blink and you'll miss it" role.

Some movies have deceptive titles, but "Edge of Doom" delivers exactly what it promises, lots of doom and gloom. How many other movies feature a character whose mother dies at the beginning of the movie, who then spends most of the rest of the movie trying in vain to raise money for her funeral? A sense of doom is also evoked unrelentingly in the art direction and cinematography, both of which are splendid. The movie could almost serve as a textbook of visual style for noir, with its shadowy city streets at night and claustrophobic interiors. The seedy apartment building where most of the movie's main characters live is like one of the circles of hell in Dante.

You definitely feel for Farley Granger's character. (Even if it does get annoying to hear him say "my mother just died tonight" to almost literally every person he meets.) This movie gives Farley such a hard time that in the diner scene the cops take him jail before he can eat any of his food, even though he tells them he's starving, and then they make him pay the check!

I don't want to get into religion, or offend anyone, but I thought it was strange that the movie's "hero" is Dana Andrews priest/narrator character, as we are clearly shown that the church in this poor neighborhood is failing its parishoners. Granger's lashing at the arrogant old priest is at least understandable, given the man's lack of empathy for a woman who has put money in the church poor box every week that she clearly needed for herself and her family.

I found the ending unsatisfying, as Dana Andrews' narration ends and we are back to the present day Andrews says that Granger helped restore his faith, but he doesn't really seem to care much about him. He says that Granger writes him from his cell every week, but he's almost smiling when he says it. Since the whole movie was about Granger's plight, shouldn't we at least know what his sentence was? And then there's a last line about lemon in the tea that's supposed to end the movie on a comic note? Strange given everything that's come before. Well, I could never believe Dana Andrews as a priest anyway.

Very nice family drama with the rural Arkansas 1920s setting believably depicted in a non-stereotypical fashion. The biggest joy for me was seeing two Hollywood veterans, in what turned out to be the final phase of their careers (both died too young) playing completely against type. Ann Sheridan as the wisecracking gal with a tough exterior but a heart of gold livened many great Warner Brothers movies of the '30s and '40s, playing opposite the likes of Bogart, Cagney, and Raft. She was also a hardboiled dame in several noirs. In Come Next Spring she's wonderful as a strong willed farm woman, and I'm guessing she really enjoyed this different kind of role, since she's on record as hating her "Ooomph Girl" studio moniker. Cochrane was never a star, but played his usual cocky tough guy role in a few major movies (Best Years of Our Lives and White Heat) and in many B crime pictures. He produced Come Next Spring, and in Hollywood I guess that's what you needed to do to get a part far outside of your image. What other producer would've cast Steve Cochran as a reformed, small town drunk who wants to get his family back?

If I have a quibble with the movie it's how little anger the Sheridan character shows towards her husband for walking out on her with a 2 year old daughter, leaving her to raise 2 young children alone (the second comes after he's gone) and run the farm.) Well, we're shown that she reads the Bible, so I guess she must've really taken to heart some of its teachings on forgiveness. Though her husband deserted her she never got a divorce, making it simpler in the story for him to move back in and pick up where things left out. In "real life" would she have not likely gotten a divorce so she could get on with her life, even given the slim pickings of eligible suitors around? Well, because this is a family movie, it doesn't deal with the fact that she must've been very lonely all those years, if you get my drift. Nor does she ask him about other women he's been with over the years, no doubt quite a few given Cochrane's looks and charm. (By the way, the IMDB summary next to the title says that he's been away 12 years. I just watched this movie and 9 years is clearly stated. That would make the daughter 11 and the son 9, more realistic ages for then than 14 and 12. No way is Sherry Jackson in this movie playing a 14 year old).

A couple of reviewers indicated they weren't fans of the fight between Cochrane and Sonny Tufts. Just wanted to point out that the official poster for this movie likens it to The Quiet Man, which was Republic Pictures biggest commercial and critical hit ever, and featured the longest and most famous brawl in movie history, between John Wayne and Victor McGlaughlin So the fight in Come Next Spring is clearly meant to bring back memories of that one. It's similarly staged, with many stops and starts, and the two combatants surrounded by cheering, whooping locals, and both getting soaking wet. It's not as well directed as in Quiet Man, but thankfully it doesn't go on nearly as long! As for injecting violence into a family movie, as soon as the fight starts, the upbeat, raucous music cues us that no one is going to get really hurt.

Speaking of the music, in the score by Max Steiner I immediately recognized a recurring motif from his score for Sergeant York 14 years earlier, another movie with a rural southern setting. It was a musical motif that I've always associated with Sergeant York, so every time I heard it I couldn't help but think of the other movie. Well, I guess you can't accuse Steiner of plagiarism when he's stealing from himself.

For me this is the best Kirk Douglas has ever been, and Jan Sterling's performance as the tough-as-nails wife of doomed Leo Minosa is also one for the ages. She initially sees her husband being trapped as an opportunity to make a clean getaway. Then she stays only because she can make money, and perhaps because she has the hots for Kirk's reporter character. And even as Leo's plight becomes increasingly dire, she still can't work up a shred of concern or sympathy for her husand of five years. And he's not someone who has ever been mean or mistreated her. She's just bored. What a tough cookie. To Billy Wilder's credit, he never gives her a scene where she's even partially redeemed. She's remains greedy and cold hearted right to the end.

While Douglas and Stirling have the showy parts, the cast is uniformly excellent, and really give the movie a lot of its power and credibility. Porter Hall is nicely understated as the newspaper publisher who gives Kirk a job but never seems all that impressed with him. Bob Arthur as the impressionable young reporter is very good, gradually losing his hero worship of Kirk as he says him for what he is. Ray Teal is memorably slimy as the corrupt sheriff with a weird fascination with his pet snake. Smollet, the engineer, really seems like a small town engineer, and not an actor playing one. Great casting. Richard Bennet as Leo Minosa, the trapped man, imbues his character with dignity and humanity, making you really feel his death. There's no sense of a man giving a performance to gain your sympathy. He is who he is and you accept that. The uniform quality of the acting in these small roles is one of the things that made Billy Wilder a great director. Sadly, now many people think of great directing as showy camera work or spectacular special effects. I watch contemporay movies made by big name directors and often the acting is horrible. It's like directing actors has become a lost art.

"Ace in the Hole" is certainly a wonderful and powerful movie that holds up even after multiple viewings, but there is one thing that I've always wondered about. That Kirk's character never seeks medical attention for his stab wound has always seemed to me questionable. I guess we're supposed to see it as a sort of suicide in atonement for his complicity in Leo's death, but no matter the extent of his self-contempt he's also a narcissist, and narcissists are generally not suicidal. (It would've been a different movie if Kirk's character remained cynical and hard boiled to the end, instead of having the moment of redemption Wilder gives him that he didn't give to Mrs. Minosa.)

What's with all the 2 and 3 star ratings? Are people judging this movie in comparison to Citizen Kane or The Godfather? Me, I had a blast watching this goofy mix of teen exploitation and southern prison genres.

Arresting 'vagrants' and exploiting them as free/cheap farm labor is sadly something that was quite common in rural areas of the U.S., so give this movie credit for at least touching on a serious issue. Maybe some reviewers felt it's jarring to raise a real issue and then show the young inmates partying all night in their prison barracks, which are practically co-ed, with only a thin plywood wall separating the men and women's units. But you have to take the movie in the context in which it was made. The producers knew that it was rock and roll and Mamie Van Doren's chassis that was going to bring in the drive-in movie crowd, not an earnest appeal for prison reform.

Speaking of Mamie, I don't think she's as horrible a singer as some reviewers state, and her numbers are fun in a kitschy way. Her final calypso number shot in the TV studio is pure camp magic, with that awful fake Caribbean accent. There actually was big calypso craze at the time, so lots of performers were jumping on the bandwagon, without any concern for accusations of "cultural appropriation." For lovers of early rock'n'roll this movie also gives us a rare and much appreciated glimpse of Eddie Cochran ("Summertime Blues"), whose death in a London taxi accident at only 21 is still one of the saddest of all rock musician deaths.

The scenes of the frumpy middle aged judge making out with her much younger secret husband are pretty icky, and in the end she gets off scot free for her major role in a criminal enterprise, which caused the death of a young girl. And would the nice guy cook, who baked pies and dispensed free philosophical and show biz advice, have really allowed the inmates to be served dog food? But I guess you can't think about this movie too much. You just have to go with the loony flow.

In the end, I think this is easily one of the most entertaining of all the youth "exploitation" movies of the period, in large part because the filmmakers didn't take themselves seriously. There is no preaching about the issue of juvenile delinquency, common in movies of the period. (Actually the "youth" in this movie don't seem all that young, and are hardly "untamed." They just want to party). I don't think you need MST3K to realize that a lot of this movie was meant to be taken tongue-in-cheek. So sit back, relax, and let yourself be transported back to 1957 with Mamie and the gang.

I'm a Tony Curtis fan but had never heard of this movie until it recently showed up on TCM. Because of Tony's good looks and obviously invented screen name he's considered the quintessential movie star, but I believe he doesn't get his due as an actor. (Similar to his idol and role model, Cary Grant.) Here a young Tony shows he already had serious acting chops. It's a difficult role, as he has to be believable as a deaf mute and then as a man who's able to hear and speak for the first time. It's a contrived situation, but Tony is convincing throughout. There's a wonderfully acted and directed scene in which he goes to a party at a swanky mansion, and listening to the drunken, pretentious, obnoxious blathering of the guests he realizes that being able to hear might actually be a mixed blessing.

Acting honors go to Jan Sterling as well, playing a sort of companion role to her tough, greedy dame in Ace in the Hole. In that movie she had to wear western work clothes but here she's in slinky low cut dresses and looks very sexy. (in a bad girl femme fatale way.) Veteran character actor Wallace Ford is good as always as the kind hearted fight manager. Pretty Mona Freeman does what she can with the one-dimensional role of the almost saintly nice girl counterpoint to Jan. (It seems to be the role she usually played, like in Angel Face where she was the counterpoint to Jean Simmons).

I'm no expert on the subject, but would someone who's been deaf their whole life be able to immediately understand verbal speech? And then learn to speak and articulate clearly in just a few lessons, as the movie shows? You have to kind of suspend disbelief. Yes, it's a gimmicky story, but thanks to Tony's performance I actually found it quite moving, and director Pevney (who later did more episodic TV than almost any director) handles the boxing scenes well. In conclusion, not one of the all-time great boxing movies, but a solid human interest story and worth watching.

This movie feels like the screenwriter and director were working from a check list of film noir elements and wanted to make sure they didn't miss any. There are lots of plot twists, like in many noirs, but so many of them make no sense, and seem to be thrown in just for effect. The story has very little internal logic, in addition to a player piano that seems to magically transport itself from one location to another. (as is pointed out in the goofs section). There's also the fact that the heroine, played by Joyce MacKenzie, suddenly wants to marry Hurd Hatfield's character, despite them having barely more than one scene together. And how did she not realize that he was likely in on the criminal enterprise with Armitage, since they were such close business partners?

The opening sequence of the movie is actually pretty nifty, with a murder being committed during a 5 minute movie intermission, but that's never than brought into the story to be used as the killers' alibi. There are other scenes in the movie that are good by themselves, but add nothing to the overall story.

Another liability is the acting. Joyce MacKenzie is pretty wooden, and you never really get emotionally involved in what she's going through in trying to track down her father's killer. Albert Dekker is usually excellent, but here he seems to veer between playing his character as a sinister tough guy and a comic buffoon. Stanley Clements is an actor I know from the later (and pretty dreadful) Bowery Boys movies, and I could never really believe him as a killer, or as a self-deluded would-be ladies' man. (It's the kind of part that Elisha Cook did much better).

I'm being generous in giving this 6 stars, in part because I know how hard it is to work with such a limited budget, but I really would only recommend this to hardcore fans of the genre. One small thing of note, to me, anyway. There's a scene in the nightclub ladies' lounge in which an actress named Norma Vance, credited as "Fran - Inebriated Lady," does a nice little comic turn as a cynical, wise cracking blonde. According to IMDB, that was her one and only film appearance ever. I always wonder about things like that. How does an actor come out of nowhere, score one part, and then completely disappear?

Despite some glaring plot holes, I've always really liked this stylish noir from Otto Preminger. In fact, I much prefer it to "Laura," a movie whose elevated status I've never been able to understand. (I find it's much praised script more pretentious than genuinely witty). Of the three Preminger-Dana Andrews collaborations my favorite is "Fallen Angel," but"Sidewalk" is also very good and shows what a fine, visually creative director Preminger was before he became rich and famous making bloated epics. (I also really like "Anatomy of a Murder," which was sort of the transitional piece between the two phases of his career).

The way the Scalise mob tries to cover up their murder of the Texas gambler (future Burns and Allen sidekick Harry Von Zell in an odd bit of casting) never made any sense. Neither does the way Andrews' detective character Mark Dixon panics after accidentally killing Ken Payne. But as with every movie in this genre, I'm willing to be forgiving a certain number of plot contrivances. For me the one real weakness in "Sidewalk" is the character played by Gene Tierney. While in most film noirs the female lead is a bad girl, it's okay that in this one she's a good girl. But she's so good that it almost defies belief. Her Little Mary Sunshine personality seems totally out of synch with the rest of the movie. I don't understand her falling for Mark Dixon, and I especially don't understand her devotion to him after discovering the hell he's selfishly put her and her father through while trying to save his own skin. Also, I guess I'm a minority of one here, but while Gene Tierney is certainly attractive I don't see her as one of the all-time screen beauties, in a class with Hedy Lamar or Loretta Young, among others. And the very tailored outfits she wears in "Sidewalk," provided by husband/designer Oleg Cassini, make her look conservative and even a bit doughty. Well, what do I know about fashion?

Tierney and plot contrivances aside, "Sidewalk" is very entertaining and a masterful piece of filmmaking art. Direction, camera work, editing, art direction are all top notch. Among other things, I love the skillful blending of studio sets with the occasional actual New York location shot. I think in actually the movie is almost entirely done in the studio, yet somehow it has an authentic, gritty New York at night feel. (And I say that as a native New Yorker. Contrast this with Preminger's "Man with the Golden Arm," where for some reason I'll never understand he decided to accentuate the phoniness of the backlot "Chicago" street set, which to me really hurts the movie).

No one ever played the handsome cad better than Zachary Scott, who could make you grudgingly admire his skill at deception and manipulating women even while you hated him for it. Case in point, when he gives the ring to Faye Emerson that he stole from his murder victim and tells her it belonged to his grandmother. Now that's chutzpah!! The movie cleverly puts Scott's slimy Ronnie Mason into a house with three women - two sisters and their mother, and he casts his spell over all of them. It wasn't exactly clear to me why he wanted to marry Faye, since she was a "working girl" and not rich, but I guess she was a good enough victim until he found out that her younger sister had an inheritance. (Though the crass way Ronnie dumps one sister for another is not up to his usual level of smoothness). There's another female in the mix, a psychiatrist who sees through him, and their verbal sparring makes for one of the movie's best scenes.

Scott is great in this role, of course. Faye Emerson was a nice surprise. She was later known primarily for being a "personality" and society woman but she gives a good, nuanced performance here. She's equally believable as the "ugly duckling" flattered by Ronnie's attention and as the wised-up, scorned woman who seeks revenge. Rosemary De Camp is very good as the psychiatrist and I wish she'd had a bigger part. Bruce Bennett, who was also the "good guy" counterpoint to Scott's heel in "Mildred Pierce," seems miscast as Faye's scientist suitor. He plays the part almost as a cartoon version of the nerdy scientist. (Though one with the build of an ex-Olympic athlete). Joyce Compton is cute as always in a small part as Faye's office mate, and look for a brief appearance by young Robert Arthur, best known for playing Kirk Douglas' reporter protégé in "Ace in the Hole."

As other reviewers have covered it in detail, I will skip over that ludicrous climactic chase on the cliffs, and then the subsequent jarring shift in tone from film noir to Andy Hardy movie. But there's enough good stuff leading up to those unfortunate last few minutes to make this movie rate a solid 7.

I found this movie on a streaming service and started watching with zero expectations. I even missed in the credits that John Alton was the cinematographer. Very quickly I was hooked, despite the fact that the terrible print made the nighttime exteriors just look dark rather than moody and atmospheric. But it had a good story, with just the right touch of the supernatural, even though there's little doubt from the first time you see him that Alexis is a charlatan who's been doing research into Christina's life in order to bilk her with his spiritualist racket. I liked the behind-the-scene reveal of how he does his "readings" (a bit reminiscent of "Nightmare Alley), and his having a spy ensconced in Christina's home was a nice touch. I stayed hooked throughout the film, even if I was able to anticipate many of plot twists. (Maybe it's because I've seen too many movies, but as soon as I hear that someone has died in a fire it's like a neon sign lights up saying "they're not really dead." Because in movies when someone dies in a fire their body is always burned beyond recognition.)

I was not familiar with Turhan Bey and really enjoyed his performance. Though Alexis was crooked you had to admire his skill, and he had a nice mischievous gleam in his eye. Since his victims seemed to be the obscenely rich, I couldn't work up any outrage. Cathy O'Donnell is an actress I've always found appealing. Here she's cast against type as a flighty young rich girl. Usually she's playing working girls or doomed film noir love interests. Lynn Bari was, according to her IMDB bio, the second most popular World War II pin-up girl among GIs behind only Betty Grable. (Really, ahead of Rita??) Maybe I have to dig up some of those photos to see what the soldiers saw, because I didn't find she had much sex appeal in the role of Christina. She was 29 at the time but came across as a lot older, almost matronly (It would've been interesting to see the gorgeous Carole Landis in this role, as originally planned). Richard Carlson was one of those generically handsome, dull B movie leading men of the '40s and '50s. His lawyer character in this movie was so boring that I could see why Christina was still pining for her supposedly dead piano-playing ex-husband. Their impending marriage seemed to be more a business merger that a product of love or desire. He does contribute to saving the sisters in the end, but interestingly, it's Alexis who gets to be the real hero.

Overall I really enjoyed this movie, so don't want to get too critical. But it's hard to believe anyone falling for Alexis' corny séance tricks, which seemed beneath him. Also, when the "dead" husband returns and start talking to her through a microphone and speakers planted in the mansion, his voice is much to loud and clear to be a "voice from beyond." Sadly, the movie even resorts to the old stuck phonography needle bit. In terms of the plot, did I miss something, or was it ever explained why the husband faked his death in order to disappear? There's a quick throw-away line about an ex-wife not being happy with her settlement. But if she was blackmailing him, why didn't he just kill her, instead of killing her and making it look like he was the victim. What was the point? Since all he cared about was money, his marriage to fabulously wealthy Christine should've made him very happy.

Speaking of wealth, the exterior of the mansion looked like it was The J. Paul Getty Museum on Pacific Coast Highway. If so, it was very skillfully blended with reverse shots of cliffs in a remote ocean setting.

Reservations aside, this is a real sleeper, and the kind of entertaining, artistic B movie you always hope to find. If only someone could restore the print so we could really appreciate John Alton's masterful lighting. And then use the UK title, "The Spiritualist," instead of the really dumb "The Amazing Mr. X." It's like they picked that title out of hat. Alexis is never once referred to during the movie as "Mr. X."

I saw this on Noir Alley on TCM, and after a big build up from Eddie Muller, who said it was one of his all-time favorite B noirs, I was sadly disappointed. Eddie was clearly very smitten with Janis Carter, but I think her performance here almost seems like a parody of noir bad girls, as if the director encouraged her to be over-the-top. In other films I've seen her in ("Framed," "The Woman on Pier 13") she's been more restrained and thus more effective. And actually sexier.

But I think the biggest problem with the movie is the script. It doesn't give Carter's character enough motivation for her actions. She's not after money or revenge, or even the man she loves. She's just kind of bored, and playing games for the fun of it. And her only "crime" is lying to the police, so that hardly seems like enough motivation for her to stab a police detective with an ice pick and subject herself to a murder charge. I guess we're just supposed to accept that she's crazy. So is this whole movie really just the portrait of a psycho? In classic film noir there is at least a twisted logic behind people's actions, even when the characters have obsessions that drive them to do unreasonable things.

William Gargan makes an effective noir "hero," trapped by his lust for Carter but ultimately struggling to do the right thing. But then how come he never comes right out and confesses that he was the murder scene, even when it gets down to the 11th hour before an innocent man's execution? An execution, by the way, that seems to be taking place literally about three days after the murder. Was there no trial? It's a giant flaw in logic. One of several in the script.

Also, we're told by the newspaper editor narrating the story that it took place during Prohibition, but there isn't even the slightest attempt at period clothes or cars. I know, it's a low budget movie, but even the dialogue is pure '40s.

I love B noirs, but while this movie checks many of the noir boxes, I wish there'd been more care given to the script. And that Carter could've played been a more believable noir seductress, and not just a nut job.