Release CalendarDVD & Blu-ray ReleasesTop 250 MoviesMost Popular MoviesBrowse Movies by GenreTop Box OfficeShowtimes & TicketsIn TheatersComing SoonMovie NewsIndia Movie Spotlight
    What's on TV & StreamingTop 250 TV ShowsMost Popular TV ShowsBrowse TV Shows by GenreTV NewsIndia TV Spotlight
    What to WatchLatest TrailersIMDb OriginalsIMDb PicksIMDb Podcasts
    OscarsBest Picture WinnersBest Picture WinnersEmmysLGBTQ+ Pride MonthSTARmeter AwardsSan Diego Comic-ConNew York Comic-ConSundance Film FestivalToronto Int'l Film FestivalAwards CentralFestival CentralAll Events
    Born TodayMost Popular CelebsMost Popular CelebsCelebrity News
    Help CenterContributor ZonePolls
For Industry Professionals
  • All
  • Titles
  • TV Episodes
  • Celebs
  • Companies
  • Keywords
  • Advanced Search
Watchlist
Sign In
  • Fully supported
  • English (United States)
    Partially supported
  • Français (Canada)
  • Français (France)
  • Deutsch (Deutschland)
  • हिंदी (भारत)
  • Italiano (Italia)
  • Português (Brasil)
  • Español (España)
  • Español (México)
  • Cast & crew
  • User reviews
  • Trivia
IMDbPro

Where the Sidewalk Ends

  • 19501950
  • Not RatedNot Rated
  • 1h 35m
IMDb RATING
7.6/10
9K
YOUR RATING
Gene Tierney and Dana Andrews in Where the Sidewalk Ends (1950)
Trailer for Where the Sidewalk Ends
Play trailer1:48
1 Video
99 Photos
  • Crime
  • Drama
  • Film-Noir
Det. Sgt. Mark Dixon wants to be something his old man wasn't: a guy on the right side of the law. Will Dixon's vicious nature get the better of him?Det. Sgt. Mark Dixon wants to be something his old man wasn't: a guy on the right side of the law. Will Dixon's vicious nature get the better of him?Det. Sgt. Mark Dixon wants to be something his old man wasn't: a guy on the right side of the law. Will Dixon's vicious nature get the better of him?
IMDb RATING
7.6/10
9K
YOUR RATING
  • Director
    • Otto Preminger
  • Writers
    • Ben Hecht(screen play)
    • Victor Trivas(adaptation)
    • Frank P. Rosenberg(adaptation)
  • Stars
    • Dana Andrews
    • Gene Tierney
    • Gary Merrill
Top credits
  • Director
    • Otto Preminger
  • Writers
    • Ben Hecht(screen play)
    • Victor Trivas(adaptation)
    • Frank P. Rosenberg(adaptation)
  • Stars
    • Dana Andrews
    • Gene Tierney
    • Gary Merrill
  • See production, box office & company info
    • 131User reviews
    • 65Critic reviews
  • See more at IMDbPro
  • Videos1

    Where the Sidewalk Ends
    Trailer 1:48
    Where the Sidewalk Ends

    Photos99

    Dana Andrews and Gary Merrill in Where the Sidewalk Ends (1950)
    Gene Tierney in Where the Sidewalk Ends (1950)
    Gene Tierney and Dana Andrews in Where the Sidewalk Ends (1950)
    Gene Tierney and Dana Andrews in Where the Sidewalk Ends (1950)
    Gary Merrill in Where the Sidewalk Ends (1950)
    Tony Barr, John Daheim, and Gary Merrill in Where the Sidewalk Ends (1950)
    Dana Andrews in Where the Sidewalk Ends (1950)
    Dana Andrews in Where the Sidewalk Ends (1950)
    Dana Andrews in Where the Sidewalk Ends (1950)
    Dana Andrews and Don Appell in Where the Sidewalk Ends (1950)
    Gene Tierney in Where the Sidewalk Ends (1950)
    Gene Tierney and Dana Andrews in Where the Sidewalk Ends (1950)

    Top cast

    Edit
    Dana Andrews
    Dana Andrews
    • Det. Mark Dixonas Det. Mark Dixon
    Gene Tierney
    Gene Tierney
    • Morgan Tayloras Morgan Taylor
    Gary Merrill
    Gary Merrill
    • Tommy Scaliseas Tommy Scalise
    Bert Freed
    Bert Freed
    • Det. Paul Kleinas Det. Paul Klein
    Tom Tully
    Tom Tully
    • Jiggs Tayloras Jiggs Taylor
    Karl Malden
    Karl Malden
    • Lt. Thomasas Lt. Thomas
    Ruth Donnelly
    Ruth Donnelly
    • Marthaas Martha
    Craig Stevens
    Craig Stevens
    • Ken Paineas Ken Paine
    Fred Aldrich
    Fred Aldrich
    • Detective at Staff Meetingas Detective at Staff Meeting
    • (uncredited)
    Don Appell
    • Willie Benderas Willie Bender
    • (uncredited)
    Tony Barr
    • Hoodlumas Hoodlum
    • (uncredited)
    David Bauer
    David Bauer
    • Sid Krameras Sid Kramer
    • (uncredited)
    Eddie Borden
    Eddie Borden
    • Pool Hall Patronas Pool Hall Patron
    • (uncredited)
    Neville Brand
    Neville Brand
    • Steveas Steve
    • (uncredited)
    Barry Brooks
    • Thugas Thug
    • (uncredited)
    Ralph Brooks
    • Railroad Baggage Clerkas Railroad Baggage Clerk
    • (uncredited)
    Oleg Cassini
    Oleg Cassini
    • Olegas Oleg
    • (uncredited)
    John Close
    John Close
    • Hansonas Hanson
    • (uncredited)
    • Director
      • Otto Preminger
    • Writers
      • Ben Hecht(screen play)
      • Victor Trivas(adaptation)
      • Frank P. Rosenberg(adaptation)
    • All cast & crew
    • See more cast details at IMDbPro

    More like this

    Night and the City
    7.9
    Night and the City
    Fallen Angel
    7.0
    Fallen Angel
    Whirlpool
    6.7
    Whirlpool
    Pickup on South Street
    7.6
    Pickup on South Street
    Panic in the Streets
    7.2
    Panic in the Streets
    No Way Out
    7.4
    No Way Out
    Laura
    7.9
    Laura
    I Wake Up Screaming
    7.2
    I Wake Up Screaming
    Nightmare Alley
    7.7
    Nightmare Alley
    Leave Her to Heaven
    7.6
    Leave Her to Heaven
    Kiss of Death
    7.4
    Kiss of Death
    Angel Face
    7.2
    Angel Face

    Storyline

    Edit

    Did you know

    Edit
    • Trivia
      This is the last in a series of films that Otto Preminger made as a director-for-hire for Twentieth Century Fox in the 1940s. The series includes Laura (1944), which also stars Gene Tierney and Dana Andrews, Fallen Angel (1945) and Whirlpool (1950).
    • Goofs
      In the opening sequence, the police dispatcher is heard on the car radio. The words spoken by the dispatcher, announcing two incidents, are lifted directly from the 1949 Procedures Manual of the New York City Police Department, where they are given as examples of the correct radio method. Only the time of day was changed to agree with the scene, but the addresses, incidents, car numbers, and dispatcher number are verbatim from the manual.
    • Quotes

      [to Detective Dixon]

      Insp. Nicholas Foley: Your job is to detect criminals, not to punish them.

    • Crazy credits
      The opening credits start as chalk writing on a sidewalk with someone walking over them.
    • Connections
      Featured in Gene Tierney: Final Curtain for a Noir Icon (2008)
    • Soundtracks
      Street Scene
      (uncredited)

      Music by Alfred Newman

      Whistled during opening credits

    User reviews131

    Review
    Top review
    8/10
    First rate film noir; make that a superb movie.
    Elegance and class are not always the first words that come to mind when folks (at least folks who might do such a thing) sit around and talk about film noir.

    Yet some of the best films of the genre, "Out of the Past," "The Killers," "In A Lonely Place," "Night and the City," manage a level of sleek sophistication that elevates them beyond a moody catch phrase and its connotations of foreboding shadows, fedoras, and femme-fatales.

    "Where the Sidewalk Ends," a fairly difficult to find film -- the only copy in perhaps the best stocked video store in Manhattan was a rough bootleg from the AMC cable channel -- belongs in a category with these classics.

    From the moment the black cloud of opening credits pass, a curtain is drawing around rogue loner detective Marc Dixon's crumbling world, and as the moments pass, it inches ever closer, threatening suffocation.

    Sure, he's that familiar "cop with a dark past", but Dana Andrews gives Dixon a bleak stare and troubled intensity that makes you as uncomfortable as he seems. And yeah, he's been smacking around suspects for too long, and the newly promoted chief (Karl Malden, in a typically robust and commanding outing) is warning him "for the last time."

    Yet Dixon hates these thugs too much to stop now. And boy didn't they had have it coming?

    "Hoods, dusters, mugs, gutter nickel-rats" he spits when that tough nut of a boss demotes him and rolls out all of the complaints the bureau has been receiving about Dixon's right hook. The advice is for him to cool off for his own good. But instead he takes matters into his own hands.

    And what a world of trouble he finds when he relies on his instincts, and falls back on a nature that may or may not have been passed down from a generation before.

    Right away he's in deep with the cops, the syndicate, his own partner. Dixon's questionable involvement in a murder "investigation" threatens his job, makes him wonder whether he is simply as base as those he has sworn to bring in. Like Bogart in "Lonely Place," can he "escape what he is?"

    When he has nowhere else to turn, he discovers that he has virtually doomed his unexpected relationship with a seraphic beauty (the marvelous Gene Tierney) who seems as if she can turn his barren bachelor's existence into something worth coming home to.

    The pacing of this superb film is taut and gripping. The group of writers that contributed to the production polished the script to a high gloss -- the dialogue is snappy without disintegrating into dated parody fodder, passionate without becoming melodramatic or sappy.

    And all of this top-notch direction and acting isn't too slick or buffed to loosen the film's emotional hold. Gene Tierney's angelic, soft-focus beauty is used to great effect. She shows herself to be an actress of considerable range, and her gentle, kind nature is as boundless here as is her psychosis in "Leave Her to Heaven." The scenes between Tierney and Andrews's Dixon grow more intense and touching the closer he seems to self-destruction.

    Near the end of his rope, cut, bruised, and exhausted Dixon summarizes his lot: "Innocent people can get into terrible jams, too,.." he says. "One false move and you're in over your head."

    Perhaps what makes this film so totally compelling is the sense that things could go wildly wrong for almost anyone -- especially for someone who is trying so hard to do right -- with one slight shift in the wind, one wrong decision or punch, or, most frighteningly, due to factors you have no control over. Noir has always reflected the darkest fears, brought them to the surface. "Where the Sidewalk Ends" does so in a realistic fashion.

    (One nit-pick of an aside: This otherwise sterling film has a glaringly poor dub of a blonde model that wouldn't seem out of place on Mystery Science Theater. How very odd.)

    But Noir fans -- heck, ANY movie fans -- who haven't seen this one are in for a terrific treat.
    helpful•41
    10
    • dcavallo
    • Jun 6, 2001

    Details

    Edit
    • Release date
      • August 1950 (United States)
    • Country of origin
      • United States
    • Language
      • English
    • Also known as
      • Night Cry
    • Filming locations
      • Washington Heights, Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA
    • Production company
      • Twentieth Century Fox
    • See more company credits at IMDbPro

    Box office

    Edit
    • Budget
      • $1,475,000 (estimated)
    See detailed box office info on IMDbPro

    Technical specs

    Edit
    • Runtime
      1 hour 35 minutes
    • Color
      • Black and White
    • Aspect ratio
      • 1.37 : 1

    Related news

    Contribute to this page

    Suggest an edit or add missing content
    Gene Tierney and Dana Andrews in Where the Sidewalk Ends (1950)
    Top Gap
    By what name was Where the Sidewalk Ends (1950) officially released in India in English?
    Answer
    • See more gaps
    • Learn more about contributing
    Edit page

    More to explore

    View list
    List
    The Best Movies Coming This Summer
    See the full list
    Image caption not available
    2:02
    LGBTQIA+ Movies and Shows to Watch This Summer
    Watch the video

    Recently viewed

    Please enable browser cookies to use this feature. Learn more.
    Get the IMDb App
    • Get the IMDb App
    • Help
    • Site Index
    • IMDbPro
    • Box Office Mojo
    • IMDb Developer
    • Press Room
    • Advertising
    • Jobs
    • Conditions of Use
    • Privacy Policy
    • Interest-Based Ads
    IMDb, an Amazon company

    © 1990-2022 by IMDb.com, Inc.