No, this has nothing to do with the Shel Silverstein poem collection of the same name. Nor does the end of the sidewalk actually come into play plotwise. Somebody just tacked the title on to convey the genre of film noir.
NYPD Det. Mark Dixon (Dana Andrews) has a record of excessive roughness against suspects, but he brushes off warnings from Lt. Thomas (Karl Malden) -- until he accidentally kills a cantankerous hood, Ken Paine (Craig Stevens). Dixon tries to make it look like Paine fled town. When the body is discovered, he tries to frame master criminal Tommy Scalise (Gary Merrill), who had likely framed Paine in the first place and whom Dixon has long wanted to put away. But Thomas instead follows the trail to Paine's hostile father-in-law, Jiggs Taylor (Tom Tully). Not only would Dixon hate to have an innocent man take the fall, but he's growing fond of Taylor's daughter, Martha (Ruth Donnelly).
It's worth noting that the Paines are separated officially but not completely. Martha still sees her husband a fair bit before his death. She just has mixed feelings about him, with the last of her love ebbing away. And what we know of his behavior toward her is rotten, so we can easily pardon her for taking interest in a new man before long. Paine's gambling depleted the Taylor savings, too, making a good lawyer hard to obtain.
Taken as a whole, the story does seem a little contrived. Fortunately, the Ben Hecht dialog is crisp enough to draw attention away from the unlikely aspects, and the acting works pretty well by '50s standards. Perhaps I ignored the weakness at the time because I wanted to.
Considering how Dixon starts out all blunt, unprofessional, and hypocritical, he becomes impressively sympathetic and borderline noble by the third act. I'm left to wonder how the flick would have gone differently without the Hays Code in full effect. Certainly Scalise wouldn't have to use an inhaler as his only hint at a drug (namely Benzedrine) addiction.
Critics have not always been generous toward WtSE, primarily because it has enough of the people from Laura to suggest a lesser spiritual successor. I had no such association in mind when I watched. It's hardly similar in characters or plot. On its own, it's rather good. I recommend it to viewers who want a noir that's fairly gritty but not too unhappy.
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