On Dangerous Ground: Where the Sidewalk Ends (1950), The Window (1949)

 

Where the Sidewalk Ends (Otto Preminger, 1950)

"A cop is basically a criminal,”  

with “an instinct for...legalized 

violence.” Not so much symptomatic

as stating the obvious. Back before

the bald guy entered the picture.  

It's a daddy-thing, I guess. The old 

guy works for the man or 

the mob, or is there a difference? 

Reeking blood brother nemesis. 

“I didn’t know a guy could hate 

that much.” Say, what?  Blame 

the city, schmuck-face. All that 

neon moral ambiguity. Kills the 

soul as well as the robbery suspect. 

Who never hopped a red-eye 

heading for Dreamland. Dumped 

the body but not the soul. They 

say if you throw an egg from 

the Dead Zone nine times out 

of ten you'll hit a fucking Cartesian. 

Framing the question, not 

the cabbie- his high-flag 

drenched in sassafras, headlong 

towards an imperfect circle. 

Blissed-out rainwater and graveyard 

tips. Tight-wadded miracles 

frenetically enbedded in a father 

who falls for the murdered man’s 

wife. As watered down as  Luke 

the Drifter retching for redemption 

cralwing through a cookie jar 

delirium. Prompting the great 

man to feign ignorance: “I remember 

nothing.” Low box office, high 

impact, late night fodder, legalised-

something-or-other, without a 

man-oh-manifesto to fall back on.   

        

The Window (Ted Tetzlaff, 1949)

So many roads, so far to gawk,   

Yet, who, with any certainty, 

can claim a reliable narrator. 

If not imprisoned, witnessing a

crime, or living a lie, whether 

barnstorming in black and white 

or embeded in a complexity 

of claustrophobic tenements 

reeking of boiled tongue and 

rancid cabbage. Lower East Side 

gentrification dollars whinpering in 

the wind-up. Walls cackling, 

deaf to lack, lustre and rodents 

the size of small seizures. Told to play 

outside, the kid says “But there’s 

nowhere to go.” Who verifies ash 

can aesthetics, misty yet murky,  

and oh, so Naked City, if only 

from the waste down. Tinseltown 

slobbering. Dream now, die later, 

Woolrich. a fly in an overturned jar.  

As for the kid, age 31, on the outskirts

of the Factory, overdosed in the

remnants of his childhood. From 

Peter Pan to John Doe and a pauper’s 

grave. Said, “I was carried on a satin 

cushion, then dropped in a garbage 

can,” a singularity without mercy.