Classic Films in Focus: EAST SIDE, WEST SIDE (1949)

Adapted from the novel by Marcia Davenport, East Side, West Side (1949) is more melodrama than murder mystery, although there always seems to be a noir plot lurking beneath its surface. Surprisingly, star Barbara Stanwyck appears in good girl mode as a wronged wife enduring domestic discord. It's not one of Stanwyck's greatest performances - her heroine is too nice even to reproach her philandering husband for most of the film - but the solid cast makes the movie worth watching, most notably Ava Gardner as the truly ruthless siren who woos James Mason away from Stanwyck. Mervyn Leroy directs a cast that also includes Van Heflin, Cyd Charisse, Gale Sondergaard, and future First Lady Nancy Reagan, as Nancy Davis, making one of her earliest appearances on the big screen.

Stanwyck plays Jessie Bourne, a wealthy socialite who has already forgiven her husband, Brandon (James Mason), for a previous affair as the story begins. Jessie is dismayed, however, when the seductive Isabel (Ava Gardner) returns and immediately pursues Brandon again, refusing to believe his assertion that he has turned over a new leaf. As a result of Brandon's scuffle with Isabel's jealous boyfriend, Jessie begins a friendship with a young model named Rosa (Cyd Charisse) and her childhood crush, Mark (Van Heflin). Soon Mark reveals that his feelings for Jessie are more than platonic, but when Isabel is murdered Mark helps Jessie by working to clear Brandon from blame.

The murder and subsequent investigation occupy only the third act, while the majority of the story focuses on Jessie's misplaced loyalty to Brandon in spite of all the evidence that he's a faithless cad who relies on her presumed forgiveness to keep up his shenanigans. It only takes Rosa two minutes to figure out that Brandon is no good; "If I were your wife, I'd cut your heart out," she says, and the audience agrees with her. Jessie, however, clings to her optimism. "He'll change, you'll see. He'll change," she tells her friend, Helen (Nancy Davis), but even Jessie doesn't sound like she believes it. Jessie's mother (Gale Sondergaard) is polite to Brandon in front of Jessie but fervently hopes that her daughter will leave him. With every other character both overtly and covertly urging Jessie to dump her cheating spouse, it's frustrating to watch the heroine stick by him for so long, especially because we aren't used to seeing Stanwyck play doormats.

The bad characters have more fun, particularly Ava Gardner, whose Isabel prowls the Del Rio like a panther in a backless gown. She's a true femme fatale, and she knows it; she taunts Jessie with her power over Brandon, bragging that she can disrupt any effort to extricate him from her clutches. James Mason, handsome but too cosmopolitan to be trustworthy, has a smoldering, debauched look whenever he's in a scene with Gardner. His Brandon glares at Isabel with equal measures of lust and loathing, and we know she's right that the two of them are more alike than Brandon cares to admit. Isabel's circle includes much rougher characters, too; her boyfriend, Alec (Douglas Kennedy) is a bruiser who resents Isabel's interest in Brandon but has his own jealous side piece, Felice (Beverly Michaels), to amuse him when Isabel isn't around. This dangerous crew threatens to push the story into noir territory, and the audience perhaps hopes that they will, but Jessie and Mark are so resolutely moral that we know they'll never be pulled into anything so shady.

If you want to see Stanwyck and Heflin together in really heated noir, try The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946). Catch James Mason in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954), A Star is Born (1954), and North by Northwest (1959). Ava Gardner burns up the screen in The Killers (1946), Mogambo (1953), and The Barefoot Contessa (1954). Cyd Charisse also starred in Tension in 1949, but she's best remembered for musicals like Singin' in the Rain (1952), The Band Wagon (1953), and Brigadoon (1954). Mervyn Leroy's other films from the 1940s include Random Harvest (1940), Madame Curie (1943), and Little Women (1949). The Valley of Decision (1945), starring Greer Garson and Gregory Peck, was also adapted from a novel by Marcia Davenport.

Classic Films in Focus: THE STRANGE LOVE OF MARTHA IVERS (1946)

Lewis Milestone's 1946 noir thriller, The Strange Love of Martha Ivers, merits attention for a number of reasons, including another excellent femme fatale performance from Double Indemnity (1944) star Barbara Stanwyck. A story of murder, money, and carefully guarded power, the film presents a fascinating commentary on the ways in which early experiences shape personality and determine destiny, either for good or evil. It also offers an outstanding cast in addition to Stanwyck, including Van Heflin, Lizabeth Scott, Kirk Douglas, and Judith Anderson, all of them in top form as the familiar types of the genre.

Stanwyck plays the adult incarnation of Martha Ivers, a character we first meet as a young girl (played by Janis Wilson). Young Martha's fatal argument with her tyrannical aunt (Judith Anderson) sets the wheel of fortune in motion, bringing freedom and power to Martha but also binding her to the few people who might know what really happened that night. Once grown, she marries Walter (Kirk Douglas), the son of her aunt's chief sycophant, and pushes him into politics and the law. The unexpected return of another childhood companion, Sam (Van Heflin), seems to threaten Martha and Walter's long protection of their dark secrets, and the couple will stop at nothing to ensure his silence, even using his newfound love interest, Toni (Lizabeth Scott), as a pawn in their deadly game.

Martha is one of Stanwyck's steeliest and most deranged characters, and those qualities are established by Janis Wilson's performance before Stanwyck even takes over the role. She needs desperately, and because of that she draws both Walter and Sam to her, although in Walter's case her embrace quickly becomes a death grip. Walter and Martha make for a spectacularly dysfunctional couple, fighting, plotting, and hating each other but bound together in a Wuthering Heights kind of codependency. Countering their mad marriage we have Sam's developing relationship with Toni, a hard luck angel who serves as a foil to Stanwyck's spoiled succubus. The audience sees right away that Toni is the right girl for Sam, but Martha's siren appeal confuses him and draws him in, despite the fact that Sam has been around enough that he ought to know better.

The Strange Love of Martha Ivers is also noteworthy because Walter is Kirk Douglas' very first screen role, and he springs fully-formed from the head of Hollywood, holding his own against the well-established Stanwyck, who was nine years his senior and had been in movies for nearly two decades in 1946. Douglas plays Walter as a tragically mixed bag of weakness and good intentions, and his drunk scenes are some of his best moments in the film. His good looks and strong chin suggest that Walter might have been a better man if not for his opportunistic father and dangerous, demanding wife, but he loves Martha in spite of her rotten heart. He can drink himself into a stupor, but he can never leave her, and she knows it all too well. The ending of the movie brings their relationship to a shocking, but perfectly realized, close, with a scene that embodies everything we love about classic noir.

See more of young Kirk Douglas in Out of the Past (1947), his next film and another great example of film noir. Director Lewis Milestone earned the Oscar for Best Director for his work on All Quiet on the Western Front (1930), but he also directed Of Mice and Men (1939) and the original Ocean's 11 (1960). Judith Anderson is best remembered today as Mrs. Danvers in Rebecca (1940), while Van Heflin is probably best known for Shane (1953) and 3:10 to Yuma (1957), although he won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for Johnny Eager (1941). See more of Lizabeth Scott in Dead Reckoning (1947) with Humphrey Bogart. For a different side of Stanwyck, try Stella Dallas (1937 and The Lady Eve (1941.)  

The Strange Love of Martha Ivers is now in the public domain, which means you can see it for free on almost any streaming service, but it looks much better if you can find a high quality print, especially with the stormy scenes early in the film.