You would think will all the talent that MGM managed to pack into this film they might have come up with something better. But East Side, West Side as a whole just doesn't click.
I hear tell that the original novel was quite a bit more complex and I would venture to say that MGM botched it in the writing department. Especially coming up with a murder suspect way out of the left field bleachers.
James Mason and Barbara Stanwyck are a married society couple, but Mason occasionally strays and he did so with Ava Gardner who seems to have a habit of picking up strays. Ava's gone away, but now she's back and looking to work both Mason and new flame Douglas Kennedy at the same time.
Of course that goes over great with Stanwyck and later when Gardner turns up murdered there are all kinds of suspects.
Ava's fabulous here as one amoral woman, the kind Barbara Stanwyck has on occasion played on screen. Their one scene together has some bite from real life because Ava's previous picture, The Bribe co-starred her with Robert Taylor and the two of them allegedly went at it like rabbits in the off hours. Talk about art imitating life.
Van Heflin is also in this as a former beat cop turned writer who is being lionized by Stanwyck and Mason's society folk. Heflin gets to repeat the drunk act he did when he won an Academy Award for Johnny Eager.
Gale Sondergaard is in this also, her last film before being blacklisted. She was off the screen for 20 years. There is an element introduced in the film that made no sense at all, she's Stanwyck's mother though she's only 8 years old than Barbara, and she loathes Mason as it turns out. Introduced and then dropped.
Former first lady Nancy Davis Reagan has a small part as a Stanwyck confidante and Cyd Charisse is in this in a non-dancing role as a friend of Heflin's.
Seeing a lot of dangling ends in this story, I'm sure that East Side, West Side is a lot more complex than what MGM gave us in 1949.
I hear tell that the original novel was quite a bit more complex and I would venture to say that MGM botched it in the writing department. Especially coming up with a murder suspect way out of the left field bleachers.
James Mason and Barbara Stanwyck are a married society couple, but Mason occasionally strays and he did so with Ava Gardner who seems to have a habit of picking up strays. Ava's gone away, but now she's back and looking to work both Mason and new flame Douglas Kennedy at the same time.
Of course that goes over great with Stanwyck and later when Gardner turns up murdered there are all kinds of suspects.
Ava's fabulous here as one amoral woman, the kind Barbara Stanwyck has on occasion played on screen. Their one scene together has some bite from real life because Ava's previous picture, The Bribe co-starred her with Robert Taylor and the two of them allegedly went at it like rabbits in the off hours. Talk about art imitating life.
Van Heflin is also in this as a former beat cop turned writer who is being lionized by Stanwyck and Mason's society folk. Heflin gets to repeat the drunk act he did when he won an Academy Award for Johnny Eager.
Gale Sondergaard is in this also, her last film before being blacklisted. She was off the screen for 20 years. There is an element introduced in the film that made no sense at all, she's Stanwyck's mother though she's only 8 years old than Barbara, and she loathes Mason as it turns out. Introduced and then dropped.
Former first lady Nancy Davis Reagan has a small part as a Stanwyck confidante and Cyd Charisse is in this in a non-dancing role as a friend of Heflin's.
Seeing a lot of dangling ends in this story, I'm sure that East Side, West Side is a lot more complex than what MGM gave us in 1949.