It's not easy to make 1952 Los Angeles look very interesting. A panoramic view shows mostly smog. But "The Turning Point" does its best and the location shooting is one of its most admirable features. Prominent use is made of the two-block long funicular railway that runs up from "Pond Street", meaning Hill and Olive Streets in L.A. The incline is lined on both sides with inexpensive clapboard housing that suggests "working class", and some scenes are shot in the doorways and apartments. It's all gone now, railway included, to make way for some bland and pitiless "redevelopment" in 1968. Everything in Los Angeles gives way to redevelopment when the property becomes valuable enough. Stores proudly announce, "Serving The Public Since 2012!" "Chinatown" gave us a picture postcard view of Los Angeles in 1937 and made the place look limitlessly livable.
At any rate, cynical reporter William Holden and idealistic anti-crime crusader Edmund O'Brien both grew up in the same neighborhood of Central City or whatever Los Angeles is called here. (So did Ted de Corsia, a thug as usual, but not without principles for a change.) O'Brien is anxious to shut down the crooked gangster who runs the city, Ed Begley. I don't want to give away the entire plot but I guess I can say that Alexis Smith is the girl friend with the striking eyes, especially for a Canadian, who is O'Brien's girl friend but finds herself falling for the hard-bitten reporter. She doesn't have much else to do and is chiefly there to add some romantic drama to the story and to demonstrate that both Holden and O'Brien are heterosexual.
Overall, it's rather routine but there are some interesting twists (the corruption reaches into O'Brien's own family) and some nicely done scenes. Aside from the hiding, shooting, and general mishigas on the funicular railway, the scene in which O'Brien rushes to the hospital after his friend Holden has been shot is understated. In a movie that was as corrupt as Central City, we'd expect O'Brien to dash into the hospital's reception room, only to be stopped by a doctor in white. "How -- how is he?", O'Brien would stutter. "I'm afraid we were too late," the doc replies sadly but philosophically. I won't describe how this familiar scene is handled here but it's better than you might think.
Another memorable incident is the arrest of Ed Begley, who plays a much more delicate slime ball here than he did in "Twelve Angry Men". He pitches a few sliders here. He's sitting at a table playing cards with his gang under a single light bulb in what looks like a basement. Police sirens wail. The goons knock over their chairs as they run away, but Begley sits still, staring at his cards. A policeman's hand holding a pistol slowly enters the frame from the right. Begley slams down his hand, gets to his feet in a dignified way, looks at the cop, finishes off his drink, and exits towards the police. The scene isn't masterful, but William Dieterle has lifted it out of the ordinary.
At any rate, cynical reporter William Holden and idealistic anti-crime crusader Edmund O'Brien both grew up in the same neighborhood of Central City or whatever Los Angeles is called here. (So did Ted de Corsia, a thug as usual, but not without principles for a change.) O'Brien is anxious to shut down the crooked gangster who runs the city, Ed Begley. I don't want to give away the entire plot but I guess I can say that Alexis Smith is the girl friend with the striking eyes, especially for a Canadian, who is O'Brien's girl friend but finds herself falling for the hard-bitten reporter. She doesn't have much else to do and is chiefly there to add some romantic drama to the story and to demonstrate that both Holden and O'Brien are heterosexual.
Overall, it's rather routine but there are some interesting twists (the corruption reaches into O'Brien's own family) and some nicely done scenes. Aside from the hiding, shooting, and general mishigas on the funicular railway, the scene in which O'Brien rushes to the hospital after his friend Holden has been shot is understated. In a movie that was as corrupt as Central City, we'd expect O'Brien to dash into the hospital's reception room, only to be stopped by a doctor in white. "How -- how is he?", O'Brien would stutter. "I'm afraid we were too late," the doc replies sadly but philosophically. I won't describe how this familiar scene is handled here but it's better than you might think.
Another memorable incident is the arrest of Ed Begley, who plays a much more delicate slime ball here than he did in "Twelve Angry Men". He pitches a few sliders here. He's sitting at a table playing cards with his gang under a single light bulb in what looks like a basement. Police sirens wail. The goons knock over their chairs as they run away, but Begley sits still, staring at his cards. A policeman's hand holding a pistol slowly enters the frame from the right. Begley slams down his hand, gets to his feet in a dignified way, looks at the cop, finishes off his drink, and exits towards the police. The scene isn't masterful, but William Dieterle has lifted it out of the ordinary.