On Dangerous Ground

I am skating on thin ice or walking on dangerous ground most days, pontificating on a wide range of matters of which I am largely ignorant. If I could remember even half the material I have read over the past nine years to bone up on blogs I would have an enviable all round education.

But I digress. I heard somewhere that On Dangerous Ground is a film not to be missed. Sorry, I must digress again and tell you about a visit to Pesaro for the Rossini festival some years ago. There was an evening with no opera and I saw The Magnificent Seven was showing in an open air cinema in the town. It would be in Italian but everyone knows the story and there’s not much dialogue. Some of the women were a bit lukewarm but the chaps carried the day. The film was slow to start; there was an interminable trailer about a French film. Eventually I got up and asked when we would see I magnifici 7. It was explained to me they were showcasing a season of seven French films. We refused a refund as we had seen so much of the film and left for an agreeable dinner outside on a warm evening.

I watched On Dangerous Ground on YouTube and rather enjoyed it but pretentious cineaste that I am it didn’t earn a place in the pantheon of great films. It is an adaptation of a Jack Higgins thriller made for TV in 1996. Here are two reviews on the IMDb website.

“I watched this again today having been let down somewhat on the first viewing. I hoped I’d been little harsh on the TV treatment since I like Jack Higgins stuff and I was willing to give it another go. A second viewing didn’t raise my appreciation. They seem to have spent loads on locations, this thing goes all over the world and there are a few decent sets. The story is fine and the woman playing Bernstein is excellent but Rob Lowe and most of the rest of the cast are dreadful. I can see a few well known faces in there but they deliver their lines as though they are drugged. It looks like it was shot on an old camcorder and the music sounds like it came from a 80’s digital watch. I guess it depends on the production company and the resources they’ve got but I’ve seen many TV movies with good production values, Robin Cooks Formula for Death springs to mind as a good example. I’ve also seen Thunder Point with Kyle Maclachlan as Sean Dillan, it’s just as bad.” (Stevin Tasker)

“This film is extremely unimpressive, sorry Lawrence Gordon Clarke. I was in it too and played a bodyguard and had a fight scene with Robe Lowe, plus another scene. I really wanted to like it, truly I did, but it is just so painful to watch. It could have been so much better if the acting had been up to scratch. There were times on set that I thought I was witnessing children in a play ground running about shouting “Bang Bang Your’e dead”!
Very disappointing to say the least, especially as I wanted to show the film off to my friends and family because I was in it.” (nigelrocksalt)

I should have been watching On Dangerous Ground, a 1951 film noir directed by Nicholas Ray. It has something in common with the 1996 film in that it too is an adaptation of a trashy thriller: Mad with Much Heart by Gerald Butler. As I haven’t seen it yet I will not skate on thin ice and give an opinion. Knowing my luck I will end up watching the wrong On Dangerous Ground again.

“Choke Canyon (titled On Dangerous Ground outside the United States) is a 1986 film, starring Stephen Collins as a “cowboy scientist” trying to develop an alternative energy source. It was filmed mostly in the vicinity of Moab, Utah. Release of the film was delayed so it would coincide with the passing of Halley’s Comet over the earth in 1986.” (Wikipedia)