User Reviews

That a film of this sort should come from Samuel Goldwyn is in itself quite a surprise, for he was much more apt to produce something with an uplifting feeling (THE BISHOP'S WIFE, ENCHANTMENT) than a grim study of the lower fringes of society. He gave it some box-office assurance by combining DANA ANDREWS (as a priest) and FARLEY GRANGER (as a victimized youth from the slums). But in telling a story of how the poor boy becomes a criminal on the run, it fails to inject enough ingredients to make the screenplay work on any level.

And that, too, is surprising, since the screenplay is the work of Philip Yordan and it is directed in bleak, noir fashion by none other than Mark Robson. But neither of the two priest characters are well developed--the testy, aging priest who is murdered and his young assistant (played by DANA ANDREWS) are not given the amount of detail they were in the novel to explain their background and motives. This is equally true of the tormented young man who rebels against the Catholic Church's treatment of his father's death and his mother's funeral. Granger, however, is good in his edgy role.

Bleak and uncompromising, it nevertheless appeared to be a film ahead of its time and would probably be more appreciated today by fans of gritty film noir, as it captures the streets, the noise, and general atmosphere of a very blighted city.

Edge of Doom (1950)

It would be hard to find a movie as unrelentingly dark and brooding as this one. Everyone from the priest to the hero's mother, from the sweet girlfriend to the neighbor down the hall is burdened with the pain of everyday life. Most of the scenes at night, too, or inside dark rooms and hallways, or both, so the shadowy world only descends lower.

And this is partly what makes it really work. Dana Andrews is a worldly, reflective priest in a tale of redemption, actually, against all this gloom. The protagonist is a young Farley Granger, who gets in trouble from a single rash act, and is in a tailspin for the rest of the movie. From one shadowy scene to another, running through dark streets or hiding in a dingy apartment, Granger has to face his inner demon.

But Granger, like Andrews, is a thoroughly decent person inside, and the movie, despite all the negative vibes, is about faith and goodness. Director Mark Robson is not a big name, of course, but he paid his dues with some of the best--Robert Wise and Val Lewton. And he came out of an era of Hollywood that was uncompromising in its technical quality. It shows.

This is a movie with a single main theme, and if it has impassioned acting and high dramatics (at times) it also is gritty and single minded, too. The plot is packaged too neatly, and littered with Andrews narrating through the long flashback. That's its one limitation--that it's limited. But what it does do it does with real intensity.

Farley Granger is a young man on the "Edge of Doom," in this 1950 film also starring Dana Andrews, Mala Powers and Paul Stewart. When a young priest wants to change parishes, Father Roth (Dana Andrews) tells the story of Martin Lynn (Granger), saying that what happened with Martin showed him that, as a priest, he was in the right place. Martin Lynn is a young man who is having trouble making ends meet as a delivery man for a florist; he has a chronically ill mother, and he wants to be able to move her to Arizona. However, after working with the florist for four years, he still can't get a raise. When his mother dies, he wants a high-priced funeral for her. He goes to the church rectory, as his mother was deeply religious and, despite living in near poverty, always gave what she could to the parish church. In an ensuing argument with an old, tired and tough priest (Harold Vermilyea), Martin hits him over the head, and the priest dies. Later, he's picked up, not for the murder, but for the robbery of a movie theater actually done by his neighbor (Paul Stewart). Though released, the detective in charge (Robert Keith) is still suspicious of him.

"Edge of Doom" is a grim noir that never lets up; Martin Lynn can't get a break, not from his boss, the funeral director or the church. His girlfriend (Mala Powers) at first feels there is no place for her in his life because of his mother. After the mother dies and Paul commits murder, he breaks up with her. His only support is Father Roth, whom he doesn't like - he resents the church for not burying his father on hallowed ground when he committed suicide and for taking his mother's money. It's not often in a film that one sees a priest killed - and with a cross yet.

The acting is good if not great. Farley Granger is sympathetic as Martin. He was often cast in this type of role. Dana Andrews does an okay job as the priest, but is a little too precious. The way to play a priest is the way Spencer Tracy did - as a man first. Andrews tries to put on a priestly air but it seems forced.

Apparently this film was not well received upon release and was withdrawn to add the very beginning, where Andrews begins to tell the story, and the very end, which comes back to the present time with Andrews and the priest. It doesn't really help the film's relentless, depressing tone. Don't watch this one if you need a smile or a feel-good movie.

My dad wrote the book that EOD is based on. It is interesting to me that a film that was declared a resounding failure still elicits some interesting commentary. The view that it is possibly the most depressing noir-type film around sounds like a huge compliment to me, given what noir is always striving to do, and indeed it IS a dark film (which makes the above comment about the Stradling cinematography kind of puzzling). Also, the IMDb trivia statement that the film has never been shown on TV can't possibly be true, since I remember seeing it on TV when I was a teen.

The novel Edge of Doom used a Crime and Punishment narrative style to tell a contemporary murder story revolving around poverty in a large American city—the template was Philadelphia—and to raise issues about how devotion to church alone can not solve the ills of a modern society. The subject matter is indeed bleak, and indeed ahead of its time. It's certainly a brooding tale, but the novel as literature was considered significant in its day. How Goldwyn came to produce it as a film is a story unto itself, but there can be no doubting that if the film's creative team had stuck to their noir-ish guns, and focused more artfully on the message, it would have been a much better film, not to mention a film that might've actually raised noir above its melodramatic station. (Noir is great, of course, and it's fun to view its style, but a lot of the entries in the genre are tough to watch nowadays, simply because the dialogue is so corny.) Bookending the movie with the corny priest scenes ruined the film's chance to actually probe the poverty theme with seriousness. By soft-pedaling its style, Mark Robson and Philip Yordan failed to capture what was important about the novel. Here was yet another example of Hollywood so afraid of box-office impact that they made a difficult situation worse, when what they might've had was a critically well-received work that would have also failed at the box office but at least might've been counted as art.

I can't say I agree with the above post that hails the work of Farley Granger. Granger has been publicly vitriolic about the movie, but in my view he did nothing to help it. He's wooden and self-conscious, and, let's face it, he was never a good actor even when Hitchcock directed him. However, I am also open to the possibility that, had Robson had any conceptual idea about how to best tell this tale, Granger might've made for an interesting screen subject. The Yordan screenplay tweaks trivialized the message and shortchanged the potential for a visual style. Even then, if Robson had brought a creative approach to things, even the screenplay issues might've been overcome.

EOD the film remains a historical curiosity, but it's mostly an example of what happens when unsympathetic, apparently clueless, filmmakers are hired to tackle a subject of seriousness, which they can only reduce to cinematic hackwork. It could have been, it SHOULD have been, a much better movie.

Edge of Doom is directed by Mark Robson and adapted to screenplay by Philip Yordan from the novel written by Leo Brady. It stars Dana Andrews, Farley Granger, Joan Evans, Robert Keith, Paul Stewart, Mala Powers and Adele Jergens. Music is by Hugo Friedhofer and cinematography by Harry Stradling.

Give evil a root and it will grow and thrive.

Relentlessly grim in thematics and mounted in classic film noir style by Robson and Stradling, if it were not for the heavy religio angle then we would be talking about one of film noir's highlights. Bookended by pious pontifications as Dana Andrews' priest offers his wisdom to a new understudy, everything in between is tinged by a bleakness as Granger's poverty stricken young man desperately tries to arrange a "big" funeral for his just deceased mother.

With a mother fixation firmly planted on his shoulders, Martin Lynn trawls through the oppressive and unforgiving city looking for help but finding none. His employer, the church, nobody, so when his temper finally snaps he also has to contend with guilt and the police circling him like a straight-jacket. All the while Father Roth is hanging around to show the good side of the church, even turning into the punching preacher at one point. But can he grant salvation to a frantic Martin Lynn as his soul begins to fracture?

Samuel Goldwyn effectively stopped backing the picture and Granger pretty much disowned it, unsurprisingly it flopped at the box office and has sort of languished in noir purgatory ever since. Shifting too much of the focus onto Father Roth really hurts the film, where Goldwyn had Robson do a re-edit and hired Ben Hecht to spruce up the religious theme. There's also a problem with Granger over acting at times, while Andrews is a touch miscast in a role tailor made for Pat O'Brien. Though the support players, particularly Keith and Stewart, more than compensate.

There's enough bite in the narrative to do justice to the excellent visuals, a cynicism that haunts the shadows of this seamy side of the city, but this really should have, and could have, been so much better. 7/10

Although there's a few weaknesses in "Edge of Doom," all but one could be tweaked away. The one that can't be is the central role, and since so much of the movie revolves around it, any failure here is a real downer.

Perhaps the problem starts with the part itself. How is a young man in the tenements supposed to be remarkably sympathetic, to the point of conveying grace to at least two weary priests, and at the same time be a priest-killer? This can be done, but you better locate the right actor, and re-fashion the murder scene if you're to deliver it.

Perhaps a young Montgomery Clift could bring this off, but Farley Granger (Martin Lynn) could not and did not--and even a re-conception of the murder scene wouldn't have helped. Granger simply cannot effectively emote anger. And since he's angry, way too angry throughout--even to the point of making us identify with the police and all other characters over him, I don't have to spell out what this does to "Edge of Doom?" Granger's anger is not only stiff, but it's out of place or aimed at all the wrong people. It's the cut-out type-- misplaced, and inapplicable. And how is someone who is quite convincingly humble, alone, devoted, and sincere also such an annoying ingrate. I guess the whole point of this heavy layout of antagonism is to set in place his capacity for murder. But then, the rage is supposed to be out of character, not in-character.

I don't know why Robson doesn't temper Granger more. I suppose that Fathers Roth (Dana Andrews) and Kirkman (Harold Vermilyea) might miss a single beat or two because of the plot gyrations, but the supporting cast is well under control, especially Martin's boss, his girlfriend, and the police figures. And Father Roth, to a large degree, despite the too pietistic flashback narration, ends up holding the neighborhood, the parish, the police dept, the despairing lives around him, his world's intimacy (oh that diner scene, the precinct, the rectory, the flower shop) and the movie itself, together.

Unusual noir drama irritates with an unconvincing pious message a disturbingly over-heated performance by Farley Granger, but it's nevertheless a fascinating watch.

When Edge of Doom was first released, audiences turned away from it with the coldest of shoulders. It was yanked out of circulation so that a pair of bookends could be shot, in which the story becomes a kind of parable told by a wise old rector (Dana Andrews) to a younger priest undergoing a pastoral crisis. The filmmakers shouldn't have bothered: Edge of Doom remains one of the bleakest, least comforting offerings of the entire noir cycle (no mean feat), and probably the most irreligious movie ever made in America.

When Farley Granger's devout but tubercular mother dies, it precipitates a rampage against everything that makes up the prison of his life: his ugly urban poverty; his penny-pinching employer who offers promises rather than a raise; the Church, which once refused burial to his father, a suicide, and is now refusing his mother the "big" funeral he thinks he owes her; the smarmy, sanctimonious undertaker. Long story short, he ends up murdering a crusty, hell-and-brimstone priest. The police nab him for a robbery he didn't commit but end up with a different murder suspect. But compassionate pastor Dana Andrews (now in flashback) suspects the truth.... There's something almost endearingly Old Left about the savagery of the indictment leveled against society's Big Guns: Church, police and capitalism. The slum where Granger lived with his mother makes Ralph and Alice Kramden's Chauncey Street digs in Brooklyn look cozily inviting (Adele Jergens, as the slatternly wife of a neighbor, observes, "Smart people don't live here"); outside, the nighttown is noir at its most exhilaratingly creepy. It's easy to see why the public, on the cusp of the fabulous fifties, shunned this movie, whose unprettiness is uncompromised. But it's as succinct a summing up of the noir vision as anything in the canon.

This reminds me so much of an old radio show my mom and I used to listen to called Unshackled or something like that. Like to an insane degree. Anyway it's pretty good but seems kind of moralist which is usually the opposite of how these noir films come across. It seemed a bit ridiculous at times but on the other hand it almost felt cozy. I actually cried at the end, when he went into the chapel.

An interesting but not very good movie. It's overlong and too often repetitive. Yet it's also one of the clearest examples of Hollywood's hybrid nature during the studio period. On one hand is the literary desire for hard-hitting social commentary, represented here by novelist Brady (thanks reviewer Songwarrior), and left-wing screenwriter Yordan (my opinion). On the other hand are the studios (including Goldwyn) deathly afraid of defying convention and of boycotting groups like the Catholic Legion of Decency. Here, the tension between these two social tendencies is on clear display.

Few movies of the period convey a clearer sense of economic entrapment than this one. No matter in what direction slum-dweller Martin (Granger) turns, he's thwarted by a lack of money and no prospects. Even the parish lacks sufficient wherewithal to help. Sure, the desire to give his dead mom a "proper send-off" seems extravagantly unrealistic. But behind his strident demand is a very democratic desire to be seen as the social equal of anyone else. His protest tellingly never gets beyond the symbolic stage of a "room full of flowers", but unpack it and you get years of frustration, privation, and a dead mother whose only consolation was a priest. Martin may not be very likable, but he is understandable.

Stradling's photography underscores that sense of hopelessness. The tenements are bare and dingy, the streets grimy and teeming, even the parish lodgings are spare and uninviting. Only the ornate funeral home presents a contrast, seeming to say that only in death will there be a change. At the same time, the scenes unfold one after the other like episodes in a twilight world of noir. If there's a single ray of actual sunshine, I missed it. No wonder Martin's going slowly nutzoid.

Nor, for that matter, are Martin's fellow slum dwellers any help. His neighbor Mr. Craig (Stewart) is a stickup man and practical adviser telling Martin to take what he can because that's the only way to survive. And when Martin yells in the hallway in some distress, the other neighbors look on mutely offering no help. Even the well-meaning old lady can't get her eye-witness identification right. There's no hint here of sentimentalizing the poor. Instead, it's a world of dis-spirited, atomized individuals giving Martin only cursory sympathy for his dead mother. Thus trapped in a hopeless environment, Martin's demand for flowers for mom becomes something much more meaningful.

Now, had the role of religion in this bleak panorama been left as it is without the wrap- around prologue and epilogue and without the omniscient narration, the result would have been much less compromised. For, without these later concessions, the priests come across more as "omsbudsmen" than anything else. In short, in its original version (without the wrap-around & narration), the movie portrays the priests as able to intercede with the cops and businessmen, etc. to make life more livable for their benighted flock, but most importantly the original screenplay does not connect them conventionally with the divine. So, the priests viewed in their purely societal role (apart from the soul-saving, divine mission), do perform a worthy assistance function. However, that limited role also lays them open to the charge that they are part of the problem and not the solution since, despite their help, they also do nothing to change the conditions in which Martin, for one, is trapped. They only make life better, not different. And when Father Kirkman tells Martin to "resign" himself to his poverty, a bleakly passive social philosophy is summed up, and much of Martin's unhappiness with the church is lent credence.

But, thanks to reviewer Piyork, we learn that original screenwriter Yordan and original director Robson were fired, and the wrap-around and narration added to "lighten" the mood (Film Noir Encyclopedia also lists two production dates). One can imagine the reaction of studio executives on seeing the original version for the first time. With its bleak atmospherics and generally unflattering portrayal of the police and the church, visions of boycott must have danced in their head. Thus what started out as a pessimistic expose of poverty and the church's role ends up making key concessions for popular consumption. Specifically, the church is now connected to the divine— Father Roth refers in the epilogue to: "the immortal soul", "faith is a part of the human soul", "I saw God in Martin Lynn", plus the key implication that apostate Martin is returning to his former faith. The cumulative result is to dilute the original message with an unmistakable supernatural overlay. At the same time, attention is redirected away from social ills to a timeless dimension. As a result, what emerges collapses into an awkward hybrid of noirish pessimism and religious optimism with the final comforting note going to the latter.

My gripe here is with Hollywood of the studio period, not with religion or Catholicism generally. Many thoughtful believers (I venture) would be challenged by the original version— that is, by its posing the question of what the actual role of the church (not only the Catholic) in ministering to the poor is? That is, is the church helping or hindering. But then, who's surprised that neither the studios nor the watchdog outfits wanted such fundamental questions troubling popular audiences, at least without conventional answers being supplied. And so another literary work gets processed into near-pablum by commercial Hollywood of the day.

Nonetheless, despite the crippling compromises, the novel's original intent still shines through, and if I were reviewer Songwarrior, I would be very proud of my dad.

At funeral home, we learn that death has only monetary value to many. And I froze when Martin darts to that basement, wondering if this could be a horror film. Who knows what could be down there? Then Martin returns home to prove his mother's death. I knew I'd be shocked when he walked through the door.

Detective played by Brian Keith cares not about religion or death, he just wants facts. Liked his part as I did the dark cinematography.

This is a rather bleak story of a young man "Martin" (Farley Granger) caught in a trap of poverty, who must care for his ailing mother and who also wants to settle down with his girlfriend. When his mother succumbs to her tuberculosis, he rales against the church - whom he resents for having, years earlier, refused to give a Christian burial to his suicide father and a tragic accident ensues. What follows is a rather depressing evaluation of the poor; literally hopeless, certainly faithless young man as he tries to avoid the consequences of the incident and organise a suitable funeral for his late mother. Dana Andrews ("Fr. Roth") stars, sparingly, and narrates the story as "Martin" looks for some sort of redemption. The film quite successfully encapsulates the cycle of despair in which Granger lives, but it has no glimmer of joy - and after a while it becomes just too dreary and unrelentingly downbeat. It is certainly not devoid of emotion, and I am certain it is representative of many a story of the urban poor - but as a piece of entertainment the lighting and direction conspire to create a film that is just too sombre.

Edge of Doom is a fascinating film with complex, worthy messages. I have read public reviewers who recount how the movie was artistically ruined by the studio, which insisted on shooting a new opening and ending. Those do stand out as different from the rest of the film, and do soften it, but they aren't so bad that they ruin the film for me. The narrative device is by itself OK. What keeps the film from having an even higher rating from me is Farley Granger. He is very good in many ways, but there is a sameness to his performance in every scene that reminded me that he is acting. He had one speed in the film, one gear, no nuance. Everyone else in the film was natural, and Dana Andrews very good indeed.

The great Dana Andrews gets first billing but his is a supporting role. This is Farley Granger's movie and he shows what a real actor is. It is very dour. Very sad. Sort of like Street Scene in the 1950s. There is not even a moment of cheerfulness. Yet it is very gripping and well written. I particular love the actors in the small roles. Even Ellen Corby and Ray Teal sneak in for great cameos. The movie is framed around a very unconvincing idea. Take those scenes out and this is a ten.

My view is that this movie falls somewhere between hose two genres. I'd call it closer to soap opera. And how, with all the talent involved, it failed so badly, makes it something of a mystery as well.

The same year, "Side Street" came out. Farley Granger was heartbreaking. He had been heartbreaking in the most poetic of all noirs two years earlier, too: "They Live By Night." Here he shows, and elicits, no emotion at all. His character is written as someone who's a little slow. But why? There were lots of young men living with, and fanatically attached to their mothers. There still are some.)

(By the way, I read the entry by the person whose father wrote the original book and feel empathy. There is certainly potential here. The movie just seems to have lost its way -- and lost it very early, despite the ministrations of a fine director, Mark Robson, and a superb screenwriter, in Philip Yordan.) None of it rings true, to put it bluntly. None of the major parts, that is. The florist for whom Granger works is well played and convincing. But the major characters are not credible.) Dana Andrews is miscast or ill directed as the understanding young priest who tries to help Granger. He goes in for such seriousness he seems to be speaking his every word in a hushed sounds. His delivery reminds me of Anne Baxter's when she is trying to convince people of her sincerity in "All About Eve." She convinced them for a while but he doesn't convince me. None of the principals do. And what a shame, too: It has potential and is performed, written, and directed by major talents.None is at his best here.

Excellent, truly depressing, forgotten noir starring Farley Granger. He plays a young man who's had an incredibly difficult life: he has grown up poor. His father, when he was a teenager, committed suicide after committing a robbery. The church denied providing any services for his father and basically told Granger and his mother that the guy was doomed to rot in Hell. Granger's mom was too religious to give it up, but Granger holds a powerful grudge for the church. The film opens with his mother dying, and Granger has to honor his mother's final wishes by going to the church to get her a funeral. A big one, he insists, because she never had anything good in life. Unfortunately, the priest his mother trusts (Dana Andrews) is out on a call, and he is forced to deal with the same priest (Harold Vermilyea) who denied his father a proper burial. This agitates Granger so much, he ends up committing a horrible crime. Andrews is quicker to understand the truth than the police, so he tries to get Granger to turn himself in before he gets himself in more trouble. Both Granger and Andrews are very good in their roles, and Mark Robson, who previously directed several horror films in the Val Lewton cycle, does an excellent job ratcheting up the suspense. This was kind of a bomb on its first release. It perhaps was too dark, even for the genre. Farley Granger didn't think it was very good, but he was wrong. He should have been proud of it. You can find this film right now on Netflix Instant. It was on VHS, but has never been on DVD.

Samuel Goldwyn produced this hybrid of social consciousness, religion and noir stylistics, which is not successful on any level. The plot pits wise priest Dana Andrews against clean-cut slum kid Farley Granger. Ironically, this anti-poverty lesson is decked out in a sumptuous production, complete with Harry Stradling's glowing photography of the mean streets.

Sometimes dismissed by the critics (read Matlin's review ) as "histrionic Granger" , "edge of doom" should be considered as it was intended for : an edifying movie, a Christian profession of faith.

On the contrary ,Granger gives a gripping performance of an overwrought man who got a raw deal :nowadays, a person who commits suicide passes for "crazy" and is not denied a funeral in consecrated ground, but at the time, the Catholic Church was adamant ;Martin has a grudge against the priests who took his mom's hand-outs in the masses ,and never gave her anything ;since he lost his faith ;thus a contradiction for he wants a beautiful funeral for his departed mother ,with plenty of flowers ,even though he's got to work off the price all his life.But it's more a vengeance on the Church than an act of redemption.

Mark Robson has a flair for scenes with a sense of mystery ,probably stemming from his first Val lewton productions ("the seventh victim" " the ghost ship" " bedlam" ) : it shows in the murder scene , and even more in the funeral parlor where Martin sees his victim in his coffin ; the reconstruction of the crime is a great moment too ; Granger's face gives away his guilt ,his stress ;all along the movie,he plays as though he's about to break down:a lesson he may have learned from the masters Ray ("they drive by night" ) and even more Hitchcock ("the rope" in which his self-conscious nervous attitude contrasts with John Dall's aplomb).Note the omnipresence of the crucifixes.

It's a long flashback :a story told by a priest (Dana Andrews) to one of his younger colleagues who thinks that the load is too heavy.

"there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent." (St Luke)

I kinda liked this film--maybe it was the cast more than anything. The script was a bit lame @ x's. the author's son makes some comments that indicate that the book was deeper or something--but when a book is sold to Hollywood--the author gives up ownership, so to speak. this film came out in 1950 & 57 years later the son still sounds sore. Meanwhile, the book is like totally unavailable so a modern viewer of the film would be hard pressed to make comparisons. Anyhow, I thought that Farley Granger did an excellent job ( despite his negative views on the film). Also excellent were Paul Stewart, Mala Powes and Robert Keith. Joan Evans was given nothing to do & Dana Andrews was good--but the character was not written well.

Farley Granger, much better known for Strangers on a Train, gives it his best shot, but cannot save the trite dialogue that runs through this soap. The film is fine for for the first 40 minutes, but loses steam about halfway through. Paul Stewart is very good, as is Dana Andrews, who plays a priest convincingly. The story of a poor boy brought up in a Catholic community is sometimes interesting, but gets a bit too preachy about the halfway point of the film. One is more inclined to believe Farley's perspective of the church than Andrews'. It is a watchable, but highly predictable piece. If you need a nap, it might work for you.