How should a person who is an enthusiast of classic cinema react when he finds himself loving a film that has been panned, dismissed and ignored for seventy-five years?
The movie in question is a Manhattan tale called East Side, West Side. It was released in 1947 when I was a mere eight years and has sunk like a stone. It's a domestic drama (or soap opera) for two-thirds of the way and then goes full noir in its last thirty minutes. If East Side, West Side is remembered at all, it's for squandering big-time talent: actors Barbara Stanwyck, James Mason, Ava Gardner, Cyd Charisse and Van Heflin; writer Isobel Lennart and director Mervyn LeRoy. I cannot remember a picture from that era that is studded with more stars.
In The New York Times, Bosley Crowther, the grand khan of 1940s movie critics, not only hated the film but was driven by it into a kind of moral uproar. "East Side, West Side," he wrote, "just about hits the low-water mark of interest, intelligence and urgency. And certainly nothing accomplished by the writers or the actors of this film does anything to raise it into an even remotely vital realm…. Frankly, we thought that films like this one had been put on the dud-list years ago." Yikes. Even though Crowther almost popped an artery writing his review, he was not explicit about what so offended him. Let me guess: "films like this" focus on frank sexual desire and more specifically with adultery and its consequences.
East Side West Side has rarely drawn much comment, but in 1991, when other noir-y films of past eras were being re-evaluated and upgraded, this one was still considered "static" and "lurid, unconvincing and artificially chic…." In a word, "uninteresting melodrama trash."
And yet the two of us found it engaging and vital and not in any way lurid.
The plot is loaded with familiar post-War II elements. Brandon Bourne (James Mason) is married to well-to-do Jessie Bourne (Barbara Stanwyck) and has recently ended a too-public affair with ex-waitress Isabel Lorrison (Ava Gardner). Isabel left town and Brandon returned to his forgiving wife, but now the ex-"hash-slinger" is back in town and wants Brandon again. She gets him, way too easily. Jessie puts up with her husband's shenanigans for a while but eventually leaves him. Meanwhile, Mark Dwyer (played by the great underrated actor Van Heflin), who is some sort of spy/journalist/all-around good guy, returns from Europe and immediately falls in love with Jessie. At this point, the movie suddenly veers from its domestic track. Isabel is murdered and Brandon accused of the crime. Dwyer, turned detective, comes to his rescue.
It's an episodic but not unworthy plot. But there's more to the film than this brief summary. Here on Walnut Street, we fans of TCM appreciated elements of the film that Bosley Crowther, and many other viewers, had left curiously unexamined.
ES, WS declares in its title that it's going to explore class tensions and antagonisms. The well-known formula is that dwellers in the east side of Manhattan are patrician, rich, and snotty, while the west side is inhabited by down-to-earth working-class plebeians who are rough but joyful. The film both elucidates and challenges the cliche. Brandon Bourne epitomizes what would now be called "upper class privilege." He's rich (probably inherited money), accustomed to servants and to getting his way. He carries himself as though he was born in tux and tails. He loves his wife Jessie, he repeatedly claims, but there's no warmth or snuggling or flirtation between the two of them, which is the film's way of implying that she's cold and that he's not getting enough at home. (That's the way things are on the Upper East Side, don't you know?) On the other hand, there's ex-waitress Isobel Lorrison, who covets East Side wealth and who is overtly sexual; she's an orgasm waiting to happen. She covets Brandon's life of ease as much or more than he wants her passion. She has no compunction about introducing her eager sexuality into the Bourne household, all the better if it pollutes their establishment complacency and fancy dress.
Even though ES, WS gives us James Mason at his slimiest and Van Heflin at his must buoyant and likable, it is a film that is dominated by its female characters. It offers us five-count'em-five strong women, all of whom exhibit gobs of what has lately come to be called "agency." Jessie (who finds her strength only in the penultimate scene) and Isabel, of course, but also Rosa Senta, played by Cyd Charisse, a young woman who makes a very good decision; Jessie's mother (Gale Sondergaard), who has the best scene in the film, when she tells Brandon to his face that he's a vain and a fraud; and also Felice Backett, played by Beverly Michaels, a dame who is "built like the Empire State Building" and who is not afraid to throw a punch. Some of the best dialog in the film (and there's a lot of good stuff) is between women who are either the closest friends or the most bitter antagonists. There is, for example, a striking confrontation between mistress and wife:
Isabel Lorrison : Sorry I'm not more subtle. But, you must remember, I haven't had your advantages. When your mother was busy being the Great Lady of the theater, mine was in a burlesque show on 14th Street. And when your mother sent you to Miss Cavanaugh's School for nice, young ladies, I was slingin' hash! Oh, you learned how to pour tea properly and how to cross your legs at the ankles only – and that plain pumps make you a lady, but, putting bows on them make you something else. You learned how to make a good marriage. But, like all your kind, you think by marrying a man, you've done enough. Well, there's one thing that Miss Cavanaugh forgot to teach you. Something I learned: how to keep a man. How to keep him wanting you!
Jessie Bourne : My husband doesn't want you. He's finished with you. He told me so last night.
Isabel Lorrison : I'll call him and he'll come running.
That's classy writing.
The women are not the only vibrant and credible characters. There's also Bourne himself, who is an exemplar of what would now, decades later, be called "sexaholism." He wants to be faithful, or at least says he does, but he can't help himself when Isabel Lorrison/Ava Gardner has a telephone in her hands. Whether he's ill or just weak and pathetic is left to the audience to decide.
And by the way, the film was written by a woman (Isabel Lennart) who adapted it from a novel by Marcia Davenport — a writer well known in her day but long forgotten. The novel has been out of print for decades, but Interlibrary Loan has located a copy for me. It's now "in transit' and I'm waiting impatiently for it to arrive.
