On Dangerous Ground: Almost Horror(ble)

FIRST AND SECOND THOUGHTS: 

Blind girls and bad cops will always have a place in cinema. Should they fall in love in a snowy mountain cabin? I’m sadly going to have to say no. This film felt very short and incredibly devoid of character. I am a huge Robert Ryan fan but I felt like his character was completely lost in this film. Ida Lupino is a much better actress than this film would lead you to believe. I just can’t help but point a finger at Nicholas Ray and ask, “What happened?”

            The first part of the film dives right in to the stereotypically angry cop from the city and doesn’t go anywhere with the character until it’s too late to do anything with him. I didn’t find the film hard to sit through though, totally the opposite. I was constantly waiting for something to happen. During the shots where Jim Wilson is driving his cop car around alone at night, I got this tremendously eerie feeling. It almost felt like a psychological horror film, where we can only see the relatable side of the killer until it’s too late. I kept expecting more brutality, more emotional drama, or at least a small  character or two that led the Wilson down an unforgiving path of mystery and adventure.

COME BACK TO YOURSELF RAY!

            Some of the most satisfying moments in Ray’s films are when characters with strong pent-up emotions let loose. When Donna Foster confronts Christabel Cane in Born to Be Bad, or Louise Merritt shoves the bimbo from the bar in The Lusty Men, there is a sense of empowerment and a reality that accompanies it. This film lacks both. I wanted to see Ida Lupino break out and scream. I wanted to see her character reach a breaking point that only Jim Wilson could fix. I wanted to see Robert Ryan’s character loose it the way Dixon Steele or Emma Small did. 

            I had an expectation for this film that I didn’t have for the other films and that may have distracted me. I can still say with confidence that this film didn’t live up to that expectation. None of the characters experienced at realistic change. That kind of change is inevitable in these kinds of films, but the importance isn’t that the change is made, it’s how the characters come to their realizations and how they deal with their situations when the change is happening. None of these characters catch on to their faults soon enough and that leads to flat performances with no room for character growth.

NOT A HOOK (UP): 

            I didn’t even want to see Jim Wilson and Mary Malden hook up (despite the beautiful babies I’m sure they’d make). There is no way of fully recognizing why the performances felt so empty or why the characters felt so incomplete, but in both cases I felt that way.

ALMOST HORROR: 

            On a different note, I truly enjoyed the cinematography and felt that the snowy mountain location would have been great for a horror film. In fact, a lot of this film gave off a really great horror film vibe, and had it been a little more perverse and a little less flat I think it would have made a great horror film. The scene where Jim Wilson flips the car is fantastic. Seeing him wake up in a frozen wasteland next to another abandon car is not only interesting, it’s eerie. I think had these elements been pushed to the limit I could have really gotten into it, but sadly I found myself distracted and dissatisfied.