Side Street may be my favorite film noir by Anthony Mann, not necessarily because it's the best or the smartest, but because it examines a trope that I dearly love: a good man making a simple mistake. We like Joe Norson, a part-time NYC mail carrier who recently lost his gas station and has to live with his in-laws. All he wants is to be able to provide for his very pregnant wife, Ellen, but times are hard and working as a mail carrier just isn't doing the trick. So, although we may disapprove, we can certainly emphasize with Joe when he has a moment of weakness and steals what he thinks is $200 from the office of one of his clients. Unbeknownst to him, the envelope he stole actually contained $30,000 of blackmail money. So Joe, being a likeable fellow, tries to do the right thing and return the money. Too bad the man he stole from was a corrupt attorney. Even worse, he doesn't believe Joe's story. After scaring Joe out of his office, the attorney orders his goons to find the money, no matter how many innocent people get hurt or killed in the process. Side Street is a remarkably gritty film that manages to truly get under your skin. As previously mentioned, Joe is an honest guy who made a simple mistake. In a way, his story serves as a grim opposite of the wrongly accused protagonist trope that Alfred Hitchcock loved so dearly. Joe is very definitely guilty. But his punishment doesn't match the crime. And that, in my opinion, makes him much more compelling than Richard Hannay or Roger O. Thornhill.
8/10
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