‘Side Street’ Blu-ray (review)

Warner Archive

When they write about the great Films Noir, the 1949 movie Side Street rarely makes the list, but perhaps it should.

Side Street, starring Farley Granger, is a treat for various reasons. These include its sharp direction, its cast of familiar character actors, and, perhaps most importantly, its many location shots of New York City at mid-century!

Farley Granger was never an A-list star but he was certainly serviceable in quite a few films around this time, ranging from comedy romances to heavy crime dramas like this one.

Here he was just a year or two away from his best remembered performance, in Alfred Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train. In the 1970s, he would become a staple of Italian cinema before returning to the US as a soap star.

In this picture, he often reminds me of the young, pre-Chaplin, Robert Downey, Jr.

Although clearly a B movie, some of MGM’s big guns are behind the scenes, including Art Director Cedric Gibbons and Recording Supervisor Douglas Shearer. The director was Anthony Mann. Although a bit of a jack-of-all-trades at that time, Mann would become known for his stylish westerns, especially a handful with James Stewart as their star. He directed Stewart in some non-westerns, as well, including the big hits, Strategic Air Command and The Glenn Miller Story.

With Side Street, Mann is clearly attempting from the beginning to give the picture a “realism” feel.

The narration essentially tells the viewer this. The result reminds me quite a bit of episodes of the TV series, Naked City which wouldn’t come along until a decade later.

As in many episodes of that series, we meet an everyman character who makes a poor choice and sets off a bizarre chain of events that nearly gets him killed…and does get several other people killed, even as the police scramble to save the day.

Although it’s kind of a convoluted plot, Granger is fine in the lead, nervously going with the flow to try to get himself out of the mess he got himself into.

Paul Kelly, always a fun actor to watch, is the head of the detectives (who narrates). Cathy O’Donnell, although never a major star, works well as the loyal wife who gives birth during the course of the story. The real female star, however, is Jean Hagen, who steals every single scene in which she appears as an ill-fated, flirty, alcoholic, torch singer. She would go on to steal every single scene where she appears in Singin’ in the Rain, too!

The rest of the cast is rounded out with a large number of familiar character people—Adele Jergens, James Craig, Charles McGraw, Whit Bissell, James Westerfield (playing a uniformed cop, as usual), Minerva Urecal, and even familiar radio voice, Ransom Sherman, briefly.

When it comes right down to it, though, the real star of Side Street is New York City.

Location shooting was not really a big thing for Hollywood films at that time, but here, with stark black and white cinematography, we are treated to scene after scene of the streets of Manhattan—both crowded and empty—as well as the Brooklyn Bridge, the El train, the docks, etc. One character says it’s very early on a Sunday morning and thus the streets are deserted.

Perhaps that’s when they actually filmed the climactic car chase scene. Car chases weren’t really big in movies of the day, either, except for comedic purposes. Here we get some impressive early stunt driving that brings to mind The French Connection because of the location.

There are also lots of overhead camera shots, presumably from up on building roofs. These open the picture during the title sequence and then reappear for the big chase scenes at the finale. Overall, as was often the case with MGM’s B movies, Side Street is pretty much an A movie, and deserves to be better regarded as Film Noir.

The film features a beautiful restored print and extras include commentary, a featurette, a Crime Does Not Pay short, two animated shorts and the trailer.

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