Edge of Doom

Sometimes dismissed by the critics (read Matlin's review ) as "histrionic Granger" , "edge of doom" should be considered as it was intended for : an edifying movie, a Christian profession of faith.

On the contrary ,Granger gives a gripping performance of an overwrought man who got a raw deal :nowadays, a person who commits suicide passes for "crazy" and is not denied a funeral in consecrated ground, but at the time, the Catholic Church was adamant ;Martin has a grudge against the priests who took his mom's hand-outs in the masses ,and never gave her anything ;since he lost his faith ;thus a contradiction for he wants a beautiful funeral for his departed mother ,with plenty of flowers ,even though he's got to work off the price all his life.But it's more a vengeance on the Church than an act of redemption.

Mark Robson has a flair for scenes with a sense of mystery ,probably stemming from his first Val lewton productions ("the seventh victim" " the ghost ship" " bedlam" ) : it shows in the murder scene , and even more in the funeral parlor where Martin sees his victim in his coffin ; the reconstruction of the crime is a great moment too ; Granger's face gives away his guilt ,his stress ;all along the movie,he plays as though he's about to break down:a lesson he may have learned from the masters Ray ("they drive by night" ) and even more Hitchcock ("the rope" in which his self-conscious nervous attitude contrasts with John Dall's aplomb).Note the omnipresence of the crucifixes.

It's a long flashback :a story told by a priest (Dana Andrews) to one of his younger colleagues who thinks that the load is too heavy.

"there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent." (St Luke)

When Edge of Doom was first released, audiences turned away from it with the coldest of shoulders. It was yanked out of circulation so that a pair of bookends could be shot, in which the story becomes a kind of parable told by a wise old rector (Dana Andrews) to a younger priest undergoing a pastoral crisis. The filmmakers shouldn't have bothered: Edge of Doom remains one of the bleakest, least comforting offerings of the entire noir cycle (no mean feat), and probably the most irreligious movie ever made in America.

When Farley Granger's devout but tubercular mother dies, it precipitates a rampage against everything that makes up the prison of his life: his ugly urban poverty; his penny-pinching employer who offers promises rather than a raise; the Church, which once refused burial to his father, a suicide, and is now refusing his mother the "big" funeral he thinks he owes her; the smarmy, sanctimonious undertaker. Long story short, he ends up murdering a crusty, hell-and-brimstone priest. The police nab him for a robbery he didn't commit but end up with a different murder suspect. But compassionate pastor Dana Andrews (now in flashback) suspects the truth.... There's something almost endearingly Old Left about the savagery of the indictment leveled against society's Big Guns: Church, police and capitalism. The slum where Granger lived with his mother makes Ralph and Alice Kramden's Chauncey Street digs in Brooklyn look cozily inviting (Adele Jergens, as the slatternly wife of a neighbor, observes, "Smart people don't live here"); outside, the nighttown is noir at its most exhilaratingly creepy. It's easy to see why the public, on the cusp of the fabulous fifties, shunned this movie, whose unprettiness is uncompromised. But it's as succinct a summing up of the noir vision as anything in the canon.

Edge of Doom (1950)

It would be hard to find a movie as unrelentingly dark and brooding as this one. Everyone from the priest to the hero's mother, from the sweet girlfriend to the neighbor down the hall is burdened with the pain of everyday life. Most of the scenes at night, too, or inside dark rooms and hallways, or both, so the shadowy world only descends lower.

And this is partly what makes it really work. Dana Andrews is a worldly, reflective priest in a tale of redemption, actually, against all this gloom. The protagonist is a young Farley Granger, who gets in trouble from a single rash act, and is in a tailspin for the rest of the movie. From one shadowy scene to another, running through dark streets or hiding in a dingy apartment, Granger has to face his inner demon.

But Granger, like Andrews, is a thoroughly decent person inside, and the movie, despite all the negative vibes, is about faith and goodness. Director Mark Robson is not a big name, of course, but he paid his dues with some of the best--Robert Wise and Val Lewton. And he came out of an era of Hollywood that was uncompromising in its technical quality. It shows.

This is a movie with a single main theme, and if it has impassioned acting and high dramatics (at times) it also is gritty and single minded, too. The plot is packaged too neatly, and littered with Andrews narrating through the long flashback. That's its one limitation--that it's limited. But what it does do it does with real intensity.

Edge of Doom is directed by Mark Robson and adapted to screenplay by Philip Yordan from the novel written by Leo Brady. It stars Dana Andrews, Farley Granger, Joan Evans, Robert Keith, Paul Stewart, Mala Powers and Adele Jergens. Music is by Hugo Friedhofer and cinematography by Harry Stradling.

Give evil a root and it will grow and thrive.

Relentlessly grim in thematics and mounted in classic film noir style by Robson and Stradling, if it were not for the heavy religio angle then we would be talking about one of film noir's highlights. Bookended by pious pontifications as Dana Andrews' priest offers his wisdom to a new understudy, everything in between is tinged by a bleakness as Granger's poverty stricken young man desperately tries to arrange a "big" funeral for his just deceased mother.

With a mother fixation firmly planted on his shoulders, Martin Lynn trawls through the oppressive and unforgiving city looking for help but finding none. His employer, the church, nobody, so when his temper finally snaps he also has to contend with guilt and the police circling him like a straight-jacket. All the while Father Roth is hanging around to show the good side of the church, even turning into the punching preacher at one point. But can he grant salvation to a frantic Martin Lynn as his soul begins to fracture?

Samuel Goldwyn effectively stopped backing the picture and Granger pretty much disowned it, unsurprisingly it flopped at the box office and has sort of languished in noir purgatory ever since. Shifting too much of the focus onto Father Roth really hurts the film, where Goldwyn had Robson do a re-edit and hired Ben Hecht to spruce up the religious theme. There's also a problem with Granger over acting at times, while Andrews is a touch miscast in a role tailor made for Pat O'Brien. Though the support players, particularly Keith and Stewart, more than compensate.

There's enough bite in the narrative to do justice to the excellent visuals, a cynicism that haunts the shadows of this seamy side of the city, but this really should have, and could have, been so much better. 7/10

The great Dana Andrews gets first billing but his is a supporting role. This is Farley Granger's movie and he shows what a real actor is. It is very dour. Very sad. Sort of like Street Scene in the 1950s. There is not even a moment of cheerfulness. Yet it is very gripping and well written. I particular love the actors in the small roles. Even Ellen Corby and Ray Teal sneak in for great cameos. The movie is framed around a very unconvincing idea. Take those scenes out and this is a ten.