Making fun of East Side, West Side could be a lot of fun if it wasn't so much blowsy fun to watch. On the plus side, it has a pretty spectacular cast, right down to William Frawley (Fred Mertz to you) as a bartender. On the minus, it's an overloaded melodrama into which they threw everything they could think of, and then some. Since there's already a kitchen sink in one of those scrambled-eggs-at-midnight scenes a mini-murder mystery was added halfway through; it amounts to no more than a subplot (though it brings in some new talent in the form of Beverly Michaels).
Barbara Stanwyck returns to a lavish apartment overlooking the East River much like the one she occupied the year before in Sorry, Wrong Number. She's the well-bred wife of a philandering husband (James Mason) who renews his affair with an old flame (Ava Gardner, at her most other-womanish). Stanwyck's resolve to soldier on with dignity falters with the arrival of Van Heflin, a former policeman turned war-correspondent (he drops his childhood sweetheart, Cyd Charisse, like a hot brick, albeit gently). Then Gardner turns up dead....
In addition to the five principals, other names adorn the credits, including Gale Sondergaard, William Conrad and, in her credited debut, Nancy Reagan. But best of all is another debut, that of Michaels, as a gold-digging platinum blonde whose stature is much remarked upon (`the big girl,' `built like the Empire State Building,' `the Amazon'). Later to star in Wicked Woman, Michaels commanded a minuscule range, but, within it, she was quite something. Even more than Gardner, she takes this penthouse story close to the gutter.
Barbara Stanwyck returns to a lavish apartment overlooking the East River much like the one she occupied the year before in Sorry, Wrong Number. She's the well-bred wife of a philandering husband (James Mason) who renews his affair with an old flame (Ava Gardner, at her most other-womanish). Stanwyck's resolve to soldier on with dignity falters with the arrival of Van Heflin, a former policeman turned war-correspondent (he drops his childhood sweetheart, Cyd Charisse, like a hot brick, albeit gently). Then Gardner turns up dead....
In addition to the five principals, other names adorn the credits, including Gale Sondergaard, William Conrad and, in her credited debut, Nancy Reagan. But best of all is another debut, that of Michaels, as a gold-digging platinum blonde whose stature is much remarked upon (`the big girl,' `built like the Empire State Building,' `the Amazon'). Later to star in Wicked Woman, Michaels commanded a minuscule range, but, within it, she was quite something. Even more than Gardner, she takes this penthouse story close to the gutter.