Side Street (Blu-ray Review)
- Review Date: May 30, 2025
- Format: Blu-ray Disc
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Director
Anthony MannRelease Date(s)
1949 (April 29, 2025)Studio(s)
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (Warner Archive Collection)- Film/Program Grade: A
- Video Grade: B+
- Audio Grade: A
- Extras Grade: B+
Review
Often, a location becomes a character in a film story. That’s the case with Side Street, shot largely on location in late 1940s New York City. A veteran with a low-wage job and a pregnant wife becomes desperate, gives in to temptation, and finds himself immersed in peril.
Joe Norson (Farley Granger) is making ends meet as a part-time postal worker. He and his wife, Ellen (Cathy O’Donnell), are living with her parents in their small apartment and Ellen is about to give birth to their first child. They will need much more money than Joe is currently bringing in to afford an apartment of their own and make sure their baby isn’t wanting for essentials. On one of his mail deliveries to the office of lawyer Victor Beckett (Edmon Ryan) and his associate Georgie Garsell (James Craig), Joe sees two hundred-dollar bills fall to the floor. As the money gets picked up and secured in an envelope in a filing cabinet, Joe thinks how much the $200 could help his family. He becomes so obsessed with the idea that he returns when the office is empty, breaks into the cabinet, and makes off with the envelope.
It turns out that Joe has stolen far more than $200—$30,000 to be exact. Unbeknownst to Joe, Beckett and Garsell extorted that money from a businessman in a blackmail scheme to keep his sexual affair under wraps. Their accomplice in the scheme is a woman (Adele Jergens) they’ve just murdered and dumped in the East River.
Joe wraps the money in a package and gives it to a bartender to hold, saying it’s a surprise gift for his wife. Once Garsell follows the trail of the money and Joe attracts the attention of police captain Walter Anderson (Paul Kelly), Joe finds himself the target of both the criminals and the cops. When he tries to retrieve the money and return it, he discovers it’s gone and embarks on a frantic search to find it.
Director Anthony Mann uses a variation on a theme that Alfred Hitchcock used in many of his films—an innocent man is thrust into great danger and tries to extricate himself. Only Joe is not exactly innocent. His theft of what he initially believed to be an amount of money that would help his family enormously but mean little to a rich lawyer is what sets the plot in motion. Mann presents Joe as essentially decent but not very smart. He’s fully aware stealing is a crime but his motives are unselfish. That keeps us on his side, especially since the murderous blackmailers from whom he stole the money are a lot worse.
Granger plays Joe with a look of wide-eyed desperation in most scenes. When he shares the screen with O’Donnell, his Joe is loving and concerned about her, even wanting her to have a private hospital room instead of the maternity ward. In keeping with his character, Granger’s performance lacks subtlety and he plays most scenes with broad emotions. We never see Joe reflecting and thinking of consequences. He simply acts.
Jean Hagen has a nice scene as Harriet Sinton, a nightclub singer with a fondness for booze whom Joe believes can lead him to the missing money. Hagen makes the best of a small role, delivering a sultry rendition of the Cole Porter song Easy to Love in the sparsely attended night spot and using her whiskey-soaked charm to seduce Joe. The scene somewhat slows the action but it’s always enjoyable to see Hagen in a dramatic role, since she’s best known for her comic tour-de-force performance as self-absorbed Lina Lamont, the silent-movie star with a squeaky voice in Singin’ in the Rain.
O’Donnell plays Ellen one dimensionally as the good, innocent wife who loves her husband and will do anything to help him. Her sweetness and trust in Joe establishes the bond between wife and husband and helps explain why he risks stealing the money.
Mann portrays the city as a massive, unforgiving entity that can swallow little people up and lose them on its narrow side streets. In noir tradition, the characters Joe encounters are shady types who profit by blackmail and don’t stop at murder to cover their tracks. The actual New York locations used in the film include Central Park West, Stuyvesant Town, Battery Park, Wall Street, Bowling Green Park, the Fulton Fish Market, the Queensboro Bridge, the Third Avenue El, and Greenwich Village.
Sydney Boehm’s screenplay captures the gritty side of a big city where supposedly insignificant individuals have a dramatic story. Director Anthony Mann includes many surprising moments of unexpected violence, underscoring simmering tensions that pervade a metropolis. By taking the viewer off the main avenues to a side street, Boehm zeroes in on one man’s dangerous predicament.
Side Street was shot by director of photography Joseph Ruttenberg on 35 mm black & white film with spherical lenses, finished photochemically, and presented in the Academy aspect ratio of 1.37:1. The Blu-ray from the Warner Archive Collection is sourced from a new 4K scan of the “best available preservation elements.” Quality varies. Interior shots are sharp and crisp. Some of the outdoor scenes lack the same pristine detail, likely because lighting could not be controlled as well. In dramatic moments, characters are seen in shadowy, mysterious settings. Jean Hagen’s Harriet sings in a smoky club. High angle shots, low angles, helicopter views, and tracking shots are used to great dramatic advantage. A studio backlot street doubles for Manhattan in a couple of shots, but most of the film is shot on the actual city streets.
The soundtrack is English 2.0 DTS-HD Master Audio. Dialogue is clear and distinct. In a scene when reporters clamor at an apartment doorway, the noise is completely silenced the instant the door is closed. Racing automobiles, police sirens, gun shots, and ambient police station noise add to excitement, and Lennie Hayton’s score provides appropriate atmosphere to Joe’s plight.
Bonus materials on the Blu-ray release from the Warner Archive Collection include the following:
- Audio Commentary by Richard Schickel
- Where Temptation Lurks (5:49)
- The Luckiest Guy in the World (21:09)
- Polka Dot Puss (7:45)
- Goggle Fishing Bear (7:21)
- Theatrical Trailer (2:25)
Commentary – Film historian/critic Richard Schickel notes that Side Street was a product of the Dore Schary years at MGM. Critic Richard Schickel calls it a “half forgotten” film noir. Discussing the helicopter shot shown under the title credits, he notes that such shots were fairly new at the time. The opening envisions New York City as oppressing little people. Semidocumentary filmmaking was in vogue at the time. Four-time Academy Award winner for cinematography Joseph Ruttenberg served as director of photography on the picture. Farley Granger had a “truncated career.” He had been under contract to Sam Goldwyn and previously starred in They Live By Night (1948). He would do two films for Alfred Hitchcock, Rope (1948) and Strangers on a Train (1951). Granger plays a guy living on the margins of society, looking to escape from his job routine. Anthony Mann liked to put not-too-bright guys into complex situations. Mann would later go on to direct Westerns. Dore Schary, who hired Mann, was a writer, briefly head of production at RKO, and eventually production head at MGM where he clashed with Louis B. Mayer because of their divergent views about the kinds of films the studio should make. Schary changed the image of the studio by making films with more adult, serious themes. During the post-World War II era, there was a “profound desire” to get away from the cities. Some pioneering noir films were Double Indemnity, The Postman Always Rings Twice and The Big Sleep. Novels set a tone that became popular for a ten-year period, “plunging us back into the shadows.” The flavor of the film sets the style. Many films from 1946 to the mid-50s, unless they were comedies or musicals, had a noir look. Side Street features elements of the police procedural, Mann’s “radical choice of angles,” and an exciting car chase filmed in lower Manhattan. Summing up his commentary, Schickel notes, “We understand Joe’s mistake and how we could make the same mistake ourselves.”
Where Temptation Lurks – Temptation unravels a young man’s life. The young couple is struggling. Anthony Mann’s film is “a little story about a little guy,” a slice of life. The photography is singled out as a prime ingredient of the film’s impact. Farley Granger and Cathy O’Donnell were reunited after making They Live By Night. Every character in Side Street has two sides, one good, one bad. Many World War II veterans returned home and things didn’t go as expected. It was a dark time for young men because the American dream didn’t quite come true.
The Luckiest Guy in the World – In this 1947 edition of the Crime Does Not Pay series of shorts, Barry Nelson stars as Charles Verne, a gambler who owes money to bookies. He’s desperate. When he forages for his wife’s $300, he accidentally knocks her down, killing her. He devises a plan to cover her death by faking his own, only to find a recent bet had paid off handsomely and he’d won $10,000. Once again, he contrives a story and it’s believed by the police. He’s able to claim his winnings. Luck seems to be on his side when he gets a huge commission for selling property to his landlord. His luck comes to an end in an unexpected and random fashion.
Polka Dot Puss – In this 1949 Technicolor Tom & Jerry MGM cartoon directed by William Hanna and Joseph Barbara, Tom pretends to have a cold so he can trick Mammy into letting him stay inside for the night. Jerry tricks Tom by making him think he really is sick with the measles.
Goggle Fishing Bear – Barney Bear stars in this 1949 Technicolor MGM cartoon. Barney has a diving mask and swim fins to help him better catch fish. First, he needs to get the boat’s anchor set, despite a helpful seal that acts like an incompetent hunting dog, leading Barney to a cave with an angry lobster and a frightening encounter with a shark.
Side Street was the last of Anthony Mann’s noir films, which included Raw Deal (1948) and Border Incident (1949). It’s a well written morality tale about a guy trying to eke out a living on the mean streets of New York City who gives in to weakness and then struggles to atone for his shortsightedness. Director Mann provides a documentary feel to the picture with its on-location filming, voice-over narration, black & white photography, and fast pace. Though it doesn’t have the reputation of other noir films of the period, it’s well worth a viewing.
- Dennis Seuling