Where the Sidewalk Ends

Your job is to detect criminals, not to punish them.

American city film noir directed by Otto Preminger with the screenplay written by Ben Hecht. The adaptation is from the novel "Night Cry" written by William L. Stuart and Joseph LaShelle provides the cinematography for the New York City shoot. It stars Dana Andrews, Gene Tierney, Gary Merrill, Bert Freed, Tom Tully & Karl Malden, with support coming from Ruth Donnelly, Craig Stevens & Neville Brand.

Tough New York cop Mark Dixon (Andrews) is constantly in trouble with his superiors for his heavy-handed treatment of suspects. When disaster strikes during an altercation with Ken Paine (Stevens), Dixon chooses an unethical route and attempts to frame a gangster nemesis called Tommy Sc...

"Dixon" (Dana Andrews) is an hard-nosed cop who likes to play by his own rules. Needless to say that puts him at odds with his superiors and ultimately leads to his demotion just as his contemporary "Thomas" (Karl Malden) is made lieutenant. Whilst all this disarray is distracting the police, criminal mastermind "Scalise" (Gary Merrill) is out to fleece wealthy sucker "Morrison" at a dice game but things at the game get a bit fraught and soon they have that man's body to contend with. "Dixon" likes to investigate with his fists and that leads him to a tragedy of his own, with even more complications as he is gradually falling in love with "Morgan" (Gene Tierney) who just happens to be a widow intricately connected with our story. We know wh...