ON DANGEROUS GROUND (1952) Dead-eyed cop hunts dead woman's killer in dead of winter

Noir-and-a-half ON DANGEROUS GROUND is about believable people and emotions rather than shady dicks and stolen black falcons. In a striking performance, Robert Ryan is a hardened, withdrawn street NYC cop, whose hair-trigger temper is close to losing him his badge. Banished upstate in icy winter to help the local police find a young woman's killer, he meets a lonely, blind woman (Ida Lupino, also superb), who turns out to be the sister of the young, unbalanced killer. Study Ryan’s face. He has the look of a man running on empty, totally disgusted with the world – and later, when he meets a woman he cares about, the look turns to a flicker of hope. In one suspenseful scene, Lupino feels her way in the snow to the outside cellar where she's hidden her brother. As she gently tries talking him into turning himself in, we see the boy's face only in shadow or turned down - and the glint of a knife. It’s an effective way to telegraph his fear and shame and state of mind. Great acting by all, including Sumner Williams, who plays the young killer; and Ward Bond, as the distraught father who's out to shotgun him down the second he finds him. (Trivia note: Director Nicholas Ray, who also directed REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE, abandoned ON DANGEROUS GROUND when he couldn't get the studio to buy his downbeat ending in which the cop and the woman part, with the cop returning to the city, still disillusioned. In the released version, the two wind up in romance - a false note in an otherwise fine film - rumored to have been created and directed by the co-stars, themselves.)