MGM trusted they could reproduce the sensation Farley Granger and Cathy O'Donnell had while starring in Nicholas Ray's They Live by Night, but they just couldn't generate the same romantic fire with this script to make it feel more palpable. In old movies, people too often seem to plan to change their minds, plan to have a new feeling, plan to undergo a change of heart, react, realize, when in reality they're utterly unconscious, spontaneous, organic things, especially in life-or-death situations involving surviving the mob. The acting feels forced at times, demonstrating transitions rather than creating, or allowing them. It's not a plaguing, or by any means unique, flaw, and there are moments of effective acting and writing, but Side Street succeeds primarily for its action sequences. And while it's not the dramatically engaging story that Ray's film was, Anthony Mann's results in a photographically engaging film noir thriller shot in New York City.
Mann was recognized for his scenes of violence, and using antagonistic surroundings to dramatic effect. He structures his narrative as a ride, in which each juncture is discerned by new backdrops, the scenery growing more and more unwelcoming as the film goes on, figurative of the hero's fall into disarray. The earliest shots of the hero are blended in with the opening montage. He looks into a shop window, where the reflection also contains numerous massive buildings. This is a perspective shot down the street, and the hero emerges from the middle of the shot, to a close-up at front. He is one of a cluster looking at a worker digging up a street. Huge buildings make oblique, occasionally trapezoidal panes in the background. Throughout the film, shots illustrate cityscapes, outlined and shrouded by the convex reflections in windows of taxi cabs and ambulance doors.
The film opens with a succinct homage to the New York police, and one expects that one is going to see a semi-documentary about the police. In spite of this, while the police are ongoing characters in the film, the semi-doc conventions are minimized. There are no lab scenes, and not much effort is made to lionize the cops. Usually in movies like this of the era, the police consume lots of time tracking down and interviewing people in the victim's address book and consult them at work. Neighborhood kids tell where missing men can be found. More successful than any other method is following the money trail. Here the hero does this, rather than the police, tracking down the money wrappers to the bank.
A major cop character is played by Charles McGraw. The film has a great comic shot where this super tough officer has to hold a coddled Pekinese dog found at a crime scene. This incongruity is charming. McGraw shows himself a good sport here. There are other dynamics at play than mere humor, though. The fact that this gruff man is nice to dogs hints at a primarily wholesome feature to his character. A man who is gentle to dogs is indicative that he'll be gentle to children, and care for them. This is a significant illustration, in a film that depends on its green hero Farley Granger's effort to mature, and be a dependable family man himself.
Nothing like the youthful, blue-collar star, the villain appears to be well-to-do, while obviously too much of a street thug to be authentically posh. He is dressed in one of the flashiest pinstriped suits of the whole film noir period. He unquestionably looks the class of commercial triumph that Granger wants to be but isn't. The villain's social rank fluctuates in a dreamlike manner throughout. Initially he seems like the personification of prosperity and influence, seen in a chic business suit in a lawyer's office. As the film goes on, this pretense of a flush entrepreneur is stripped away. And the tension builds on a purely gut level, which is sometimes enough.
Mann was recognized for his scenes of violence, and using antagonistic surroundings to dramatic effect. He structures his narrative as a ride, in which each juncture is discerned by new backdrops, the scenery growing more and more unwelcoming as the film goes on, figurative of the hero's fall into disarray. The earliest shots of the hero are blended in with the opening montage. He looks into a shop window, where the reflection also contains numerous massive buildings. This is a perspective shot down the street, and the hero emerges from the middle of the shot, to a close-up at front. He is one of a cluster looking at a worker digging up a street. Huge buildings make oblique, occasionally trapezoidal panes in the background. Throughout the film, shots illustrate cityscapes, outlined and shrouded by the convex reflections in windows of taxi cabs and ambulance doors.
The film opens with a succinct homage to the New York police, and one expects that one is going to see a semi-documentary about the police. In spite of this, while the police are ongoing characters in the film, the semi-doc conventions are minimized. There are no lab scenes, and not much effort is made to lionize the cops. Usually in movies like this of the era, the police consume lots of time tracking down and interviewing people in the victim's address book and consult them at work. Neighborhood kids tell where missing men can be found. More successful than any other method is following the money trail. Here the hero does this, rather than the police, tracking down the money wrappers to the bank.
A major cop character is played by Charles McGraw. The film has a great comic shot where this super tough officer has to hold a coddled Pekinese dog found at a crime scene. This incongruity is charming. McGraw shows himself a good sport here. There are other dynamics at play than mere humor, though. The fact that this gruff man is nice to dogs hints at a primarily wholesome feature to his character. A man who is gentle to dogs is indicative that he'll be gentle to children, and care for them. This is a significant illustration, in a film that depends on its green hero Farley Granger's effort to mature, and be a dependable family man himself.
Nothing like the youthful, blue-collar star, the villain appears to be well-to-do, while obviously too much of a street thug to be authentically posh. He is dressed in one of the flashiest pinstriped suits of the whole film noir period. He unquestionably looks the class of commercial triumph that Granger wants to be but isn't. The villain's social rank fluctuates in a dreamlike manner throughout. Initially he seems like the personification of prosperity and influence, seen in a chic business suit in a lawyer's office. As the film goes on, this pretense of a flush entrepreneur is stripped away. And the tension builds on a purely gut level, which is sometimes enough.