"East Side, West Side"

A few days ago I watched "East Side, West Side," with James Mason, Barbara Stanwyck and Ava Gardner. It's not the best movie in the world but I appreciated it nonetheless. Barbara Stanwyck played a kindhearted society wife to James Mason's character, a dapper and distinguished young man who unfortunately had a great weakness where fast women were concerned.

When the story begins Mason and Stanwyck seem to have weathered a bad episode in their marriage precipitated by his affair with another woman. They are all lovey dovey and she has forgiven him. But the "other woman," played by Ava Gardner, comes back to New York and begins her seduction of Mason all over again. Gardner plays an out and out slut who is completely confident of her power over him.

Mason tries to resist but eventually he succumbs to her charms and the affair begins over again. But this time he has a rival, and this time so does the Gardner character.

Gardner and Stanwyck face off and Gardner brags that she will call Mason and he will come running to her. Just after this confrontation, the Gardner character is murdered. Stanwyck and Mason are both suspects until the real killer is caught by means of a tiny piece of physical evidence left behind at the scene.

Spoiler: Don't read if you don't want to know the ending




Mason hopes to be able to pick up the pieces but Stanwyck has had quite enough of him, and she delivers a "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn," type speech before walking out on him.

While others have criticized this movie in a number of ways, and it is of course rather obvious, I enjoyed it. It was a forties movie but contained some dialogue that could have been written in 2007. There's an interesting speech by Nancy Davis (who later became Nancy Reagan) in which she talks about the myth that women can't be good friends to each other. Very modern thinking, and a speech I didn't expect in a forties movie. Perhaps not that much has changed after all, in the past 60 or so years.