On Dangerous Ground
Directed by Nicholas Ray
Written by A.I. Bezzerides and Nicholas Ray from the novel “Mad With Much Heart” by Gerald Butler
1951/USA
RKO Radio Pictures
Repeat viewing/Film Noir Classic Collection Volume 3

[box] Jim Wilson: Why do you make me do it? You know you’re gonna talk! I’m gonna make you talk! I always make you punks talk! Why do you do it? Why?[/box]

Nicholas Ray combines gritty noir with tender romance and it all comes out quite well, thanks to Robert Ryan’s subtly effective performance.

Gung-ho detective Jim Wilson (Ryan) is being eaten up inside.  He spends his off-hours brooding in his seedy bachelor pad and his working shifts dealing with “garbage”, as he calls the people he runs into on his beat.  Wilson has a terrible temper and is quick to use his fists when his first requests for information are met with resistance.  Neither his colleagues nor his boss are able to get through the wall he has built around himself. Finally, his tactics land a suspect in the hospital and his superior sends him off to “Siberia” in the countryside to help with a murder investigation.

The case involves the murder of a young girl.  The girl’s father Walter Brent (Ward Bond) has no time for cops or investigations and is tracking the killer with a rifle in his hands prepared to shoot first and ask questions later.  Now it is Wilson who must be the voice of restraint.  He accompanies Brent on his chase, which leads the men to a remote farmhouse.  They burst in on Marie (Ida Lupino), the suspect’s sister.  She is clearly not revealing everything she knowns about her brother’s whereabouts.  Brent gets very heavy handed with her before the men realize she is blind.

While Brent searches the grounds, Wilson talks to Marie.  She gradually decides she can trust him to capture her brother without hurting him and take him to an institution, where he should have been admitted long ago.  She also quicklly spots Jim’s loneliness.  The rest of the movie deals with blossoming relationship between Wilson and Marie and the men’s different efforts to capture the brother.  With Ed Begley as the police captain.

This is one of Robert Ryan’s best roles.  He does more acting with his jaw and eyes than many stars do with their whole bodies and voices.  So naturally I love this film.  All the others are good and Ida Lupino gets a chance to be less tough than she usually is.  The cinematography and staging are first-rate.  Bernard Herrmann provided the beautiful score.

The Warner DVD has a good commentary track detailing the usual fraught production history that a film produced at RKO went through during the Howard Hughes years.

Trailer