That was an excellent one.

I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

What a cast. I can enjoy this movie for that reason alone, and the stars really strut their stuff.The film is set in New York just after WW2. Jessie and Brandon Bourne (Barbara Stanwick and James Mason) a couple whose marriage has been jolted by his adulterous affair with Isabel Lorrison (Ava Gardner), try to put it behind them and move forward.However Brandon has a tendency to hang around the Del Rio nightclub where he meets young model, Rosa Senta (Cyd Charisse). Unfortunately, it's just at that moment that Isabel Lorrison arrives back on the scene and back into Brandon's life, despite his attempts to stay true to Jessie.At a party, Jessie meets Rosa's boyfriend, Mark Dwyer (Van Heflin), an intelligence operative and ex-cop turned novelist who has just returned from Europe. After a lot of musical chairs reshuffling of relationships, Rosa becomes the only one unseated while Jessie and Mark become an item, and Brandon can't help his attraction to Isabel. He explains to Jessie that his attraction is like a drunk who knows liquor will wreck him, but can't stop himself.When a murder takes place, Mark Dwyer's instincts as an ex-policeman take over. He actually walks into the murder scene and virtually runs the investigation – I guess that's why crime scene tape was invented to stop things like that happening – the case is solved but a lot of relationships change before the end.Although the story is pretty crazy, and would give any modern soapy a run for its money, "East Side, West Side" has a literate script with touches of wit, giving the stars plenty to work with. With that said though, Barbara Stanwick plays a role that she could put on like a dress straight from her wardrobe – she plays it well, but of course she did have plenty of practice.James Mason, he of the mellifluous voice, was always a scene-stealer, and smooth-talking cads like Brandon were his forte. On the other hand, Van Heflin was at his best as the honest, understanding, tower of strength. Whenever he played bad, it was so against type that Academy Awards weren't out of the question à la "Johnny Eager".Although their characters are different, the presence in the same film of both Ava Gardner and Cyd Charisse, two of the most beautiful women ever in movies, seems like overkill. On television shows like "MasterChef" and "Top Chef", when a contestant overdoes the spices, the dish can end up with just too many flavours, and that's what I felt when Ava and Cyd face each other in the same scene – you hardly know which way to look."East Side, West Side" has that indefinable MGM gloss plus a distinctive Miklos Rozsa score, but the stars make this movie; to paraphrase Norma Desmond in "Sunset Boulevard", "They had faces then".

Extremely busy marital melodrama which (rather unsuccessfully) lapses into a homicide investigation! New York City socialite Barbara Stanwyck loves and trusts investment counselor husband James Mason--even though he has a penchant for disappearing after-hours and returning home at four in the morning. Turns out old flame Ava Gardner is back in town; she's a high-class man-chaser who won't take no for an answer. Screenwriter Isobel Lennart, working from the novel by Marcia Davenport, starts things off routinely, but keeps adding characters until the scenario is bubbling over like a stew-pot. Van Heflin does wonders with a shapeless role as a war correspondent/ex-detective who ends up in jilted Stanwyck's kitchen, flirting with her in Italian, while Gardner is offered some juicy repartee (when Mason calls her "cheap", Ava replies, "That's what you like about me."). A country square-dance is curiously transplanted to a Manhattan penthouse, and Beverly Michaels' supporting performance congeals into high camp; still, Barbara and Van have an immediate rapport--one that is not apparent in her scenes with Mason (who doesn't help his cause by portraying the cad-husband like a petulant boy). Stanwyck, outfitted and coiffed like a lady ten times her age, initially doesn't have much to do, but Lennart's script soon has her traveling all over the city--east side, west side, and beyond. It's a nervous, flighty picture, paced exhaustively by director Mervyn LeRoy, but overall quite watchable. **1/2 from ****

Barbara Stanwyck, Van Heflin, James Mason, and Ava Gardner star in this stylish, chic look at life in the big city of New York City, through the eyes of its inhabitants, who are also Cyd Charisse, Nancy Davis (Reagan) and Gale Sondergaard. In any movie, basically the ingredients that go into the making of it and the rating of it are the acting, the presentation, and the storyline. In the acting, I give this an A, especially Stanwyck (but, of course) and Heflin (who incidentally make a believable couple together.) In the presentation, I also give it an A, for its style in creating the right mood and atmosphere and its no-expense budget in clothes and sets. We're there! But the story, while it starts out well, turns disappointing halfway through and becomes just another murder mystery. The story has a Why Should I Care? feel to it. The viewer is still somewhat interested due to Stanwyck's capable acting and her predicament, though she is too passive for her own good. Plus, Mason's character leaves the viewer cold and hard to really sympathize with the whole situation. Though it's easy to dismiss it on the whole after seeing it, the only reason I'd see it again is for Stanwyck. Period. But, see this only after her better films.

Louis Mayer's MGM had a certain philosophy about high-class soap opera—load the script with stars, glamour, and sophistication, and the story won't matter much because audiences pay attention first to what they see and only secondarily to what they hear. Okay, so I fell for the powerhouse cast. But not even the luscious Gardner or Charisse was enough to compensate for this over-written, over-long "will she leave him or won't she" turkey. It's one talky static scene after another with a desultory murder thrown in. I should have known trouble awaited the other side of that smarmy prologue about New York being "my town".Too bad that Director Le Roy walks through the staging, while Mason appears interested only when dialoging with Sondergaard. At the same time, stuck in a drab, colorless role is the normally gritty Stanwyck. I kept waiting for her long-suffering wife to show some typical Stanwyck fire, but she remains pulse-challenged throughout. Apparently, the normally low- key Heflin sensed the boredom since his high-spirited good guy threatens at times to go over the top. Then too, his instant attraction to Stanwyck over the appealing Charisse remains as much a mystery as the murder itself. I guess it's left to Nancy Davis (Reagan) to hit the right dramatic note and deliver the movie's message— It's true, despite the conflicts over men, women can be friends. With these 1940's sophisticated types, I guess that's a message worth delivering.There are two points of interest. It's clear that Gardner's femme fatale has a sexual hold over Mason's chronic philanderer, rather explicit for the time. But the tension is undercut by Mason's lack of conflicting emotion when confronted with her raw appeal. It's almost like director LeRoy wants to imply the lack of character instead of showing it. Second is the movie's high point that comes out of nowhere. That's when muscular blonde Beverly Michaels all but decks Heflin in the front seat of a car. Their spirited tussle is more riveting and energetic than the rest of the film combined.True, Mayer's astute philosophy got me in the door, plus I enjoyed scoping out Gardner and Charisse, but I'd like my proverbial money back, anyway.