Whoever at the Belcourt decided to pair up the 1951 Nicholas Ray pulpy melodrama On Dangerous Ground, starring Robert Ryan and Ida Lupino (who directed for a few days when Ray was ill), with the 1964 Twilight Zone episode “The Masks” (also directed by Lupino) seems to be trying to tell us something. Ground has Ryan as a brutally cynical city cop who finds salvation when he meets Lupino’s blind countryside gal. Before you see that, you’ll get the aforementioned notoriously creepy episode (written by Rod Serling, The Twilight Zone’s legendary host/creator), in which a dying man (Robert Keith) promises to give his inheritance to his spectacularly awful family — only if they wear some revealing masks for an evening. Both pieces preach the importance of human decency, urging audiences not to turn ugly, and to find some goodness in this world — and in each other. CRAIG D. LINDSEY
On Dangerous Ground and The Twilight Zone: “The Masks”
