1957: Ruby Dee in "Edge of the City"

Before the next Smackdown, Nick Taylor will be visiting some "alternates" to the Supporting Actress Ballot.

There are two noteworthy bits of trivia about Edge of the City. First: This marks the third of five films where Ruby Dee plays Sidney Poitier's wife, as well as the first of these films to focus on her character and their marriage in any real detail. Second: Edge of the City is the directorial debut of Martin Ritt, whose most famous films include Hud (which netted him his only Best Director nomination), Sounder, and The Spy Who Came in From the Cold, all of which were highly regarded by critics and Academy members alike. Ritt was a skilled actor’s director, able to craft naturalistic, cinematic performances from his ensembles while paying equal attention to the vastly different tones, milieus, and sociopolitical landscapes of each film. How could I resist the siren call of the first feature from a director this versatile and engaging, and with a cast this endlessly watchable? 

Edge of the City opens with Axel Nordmann (John Cassavetes, aces), now going by Axel North, rushing onto a boat before it sets sail. Leonard Rossenman’s thrumming score and Cassavetes’ dogged run create the impression that we’ve started the film near the end of a very intense chase scene, though it’s not immediately clear what Axel is running from. A non-conversation he has over the phone with his parents further solidifies he’s on the lamb without revealing who he's hiding from. Their desire to see him safe at home is matched by how troubling they find his recent behavior, not just whatever he did but how long he's been running from it. The next morning Axel takes a job as a longshoreman, working under the rude, corrupt Charlie Malick (Jack Warden, nicely underplaying what a bastard he is) and becoming fast friends with the charming, good-natured Tommy Tyler (Sidney Poitier, dreamy and deftly layered), who takes Axel under his wing at work and helps him come out of his shell.

At its core, Edge of the City is centered on the friendship between Tommy and Axel, both outsiders in their own way who take to each other almost instantly. The scope of Ritt's direction ensures their friendship never exists in a vacuum, keeping track on the waterfront as its own, volatile environment rather than a blank backdrop for the film’s action to take place. Even beyond the push-pull over Axel between Tommy and Charlie, Edge is interested in the social codes of (mainly) male fraternization, who benefits from them and who they exploit in turn. What do we owe our friends and loved ones versus the broader expectations society writ large has forced upon us, even if society doesn't really care for us? When are Tommy and Axel treated as one of the guys, and when do the way things are keep them from achieving any sort of justice or security? Ritt generates different tensions in Axel, Tommy, and Charlie’s interactions as they learn more about each other, showing us how the shifting dynamics between them inform the way the other dock workers treat them in turn. It’s not just about guys being dudes in a semi-inhospitable environment, but it’s also a more knowing and expansive version of this tale than you might expect.

As the film progresses, Tommy shares more of his life with Axel: the two go to work together, share lunch breaks, Axel joins Tommy when he picks up his kids from school. The biggest of these moments is when Tommy introduces Axel to his friend Ellen Wilson (Kathleen Maguire, fine) and sets them up on a date, starting with dinner at the Tyler’s house. At last we meet Tommy’s wife Lucy (the luminous Ruby Dee), who is just as magnetic and quick-witted as her husband. The date goes nicely, and the four of them start hanging out more often. As fun as it is to watch their group friendship evolve, and to see Cassavetes navigate such an awkwardly sweet, sensitive courtship, I couldn’t take my eyes away from the sheer, unabashed joy Sidney Poitier and Ruby Dee continuously radiate towards each other. Maybe you could credit some of their charisma to their previous onscreen marriages, though none centered on Dee or their partnership as much as Edge of the City. More than that, there’s something so palpably rare about watching a marriage this lovely and wholly believable in an American film, played by two of the most talented actors of their era. Lines where a less thoughtful film might settle for sitcommy sniping are instead rooted in open affection and familiarity. Jokes about his age and her beauty feel foundational to how they interact with each other, rather than signs of cracks in their marriage. You get the sense they’ve been in love a very long time, and are happy with the choices they’ve made in order to be together and have the life they do now.

Still, as great as they are together, we must single out Ruby Dee, whose Lucy is very much the heart and soul of Edge of the City. Dee is able to unfussily communicate years worth of backstory in her interactions with Poitier and Maguire without taking herself out of the present moment. She and Poitier are equally crucial in making the Tylers such a rounded, believable couple, not just in their dialogue but in the unspoken glances they share and the ease of their body language, but it’s astonishing to watch her walk into the film with the same level of complexity and vitality in her characterization that Cassavetes and Poitier have been steadily building for the last half hour. The whole film brightens up when she's onscreen, smiling with her whole face and lighting up the dance floor with her husband. It's also worth mentioning how much weight Dee imbues in a crack Lucy makes about her "busted up career", or the lack of any specific implication in her line reading of the word "talking". As warm as they are, and as jokey as some (but not all) of their teasing is, we aren't priveleged to know all the events in their lives have happened on the way to becoming the couple they are now, or even how recently some of this might have been. 

All of this, however, is shattered in the last 20 minutes of Edge of the City. Tommy is brutally injured by Charlie at work, and because it was a fair fight, their coworkers stay quiet about what happened when the cops come to investigate. Lucy is devastated, looking like she’s forcing herself not to fall apart at the prospect of a world without Tommy in it for what might be the first time in her life. She didn’t even know her husband was attacked until Axel stops by and tells her, having originally intended to comfort her and give her some money to get by before he goes to another town. It’s unclear if he would’ve even told her what happened if she didn’t demand he tell her. When Lucy directly asks who hurt Tommy and why they haven’t been arrested, Axel parrots the same “fair fight” line Charlie fed him and refuses to name names. It takes her a moment to process this gut-punch, and Dee uncorks Lucy’s anger with equal parts righteous anger and deep betrayal in one uninterrupted close-up. She rejects the notion Axel was ever Tommy’s friend, rejects the money and sympathy he offered before running away to protect a white, patriarchal system that has otherwise disempowered and abused him, at the cost of the only person who cared about him. She practically screams Axel out of her home before collapsing into her mother’s arms and sobbing. 

 

The blistering rage of this scene is often one of the first things I recall when thinking of Edge of the City, though Dee's whole performance has stuck with me since I first saw the film last summer. Her knack for communicating years of emotional history in a single look or a line of dialogue is all the more dazzling for how direct and uncomplicated her expressions of feeling are. She and Poitier convey a genuinely happy marriage without mistaking happiness for a lack of depth, adding legible traces of compromise and tension at a much lower volume than many other actors would consider. The totality of her last sequence wouldn't work if Dee hadn't crafted Lucy with such care, making her the rare cinematic spouse who seems like their partner's best friend. As strong as Edge of the City's thesis on individual and communal social codes is, Dee's playing expands the conversation while also getting to the very core of it. She shows exactly what it means to love someone completely, to devote yourself and be devoted to in return no matter what, and how utterly heartbreaking it is when that person is gone.

Comments

[thefilmjunkie]

I need to see this! Ruby Dee was such a dependably great actress and brought the same eye-catching, scene stealing qualities you describe here to every role. For her sole Oscar nomination to have come so late in her career and for such a thankless role is a tragedy, but I'm glad she got the recognition while she was here. Dee also lead a pretty interesting life off-screen. A biopic about her life with Ossie Davis, their early experimentation with an open relationship, their activism, and of course their creative work, would be so fascinating in the right hands!

[Ken]

Ruby Dee managed to catch lightning in a bottle with so many of her performances. A really wonderful presence who raised the level of every film she was in, right from the earliest ones. Watch her in MGM's excellent Abraham Lincoln era drama "The Tall Target"(1951) Dee takes a sideline role and makes it glow. The lady definitely should have been in the supporting actress conversation that year. The same could be said about her work a decade later in "A Raisin in the Sun", where her brilliance as a collaborative artist helps inspire the contributions of everyone around her. All through her career Ruby Dee projected charisma, beauty, insight and deep humanity. Love her.

[Jericho]

This is a magnificent film, seen recently on DVD. I love John Cassavetes and Kathleen Maguire and especially Sidney Poitier and Ruby Dee. While the latter 2 appeared together in 5 films (No Way Out, Go Man Go, Edge of the City, A Raisin in the Sun, and Buck and the Preacher, they played husband-wife only in the last 4. In "No Way Out" (another superb Poitier picture - "Time Out" says it's Poitier's first - and best film") Mildred Joanne Smith played his wife. Another great Ruby Dee role is in "Take A Giant Step" (1959).