Edge of Doom

Goldwyn-produced religious trumpery, with Granger indulging heavily sulky histrionics as a young man driven to murder a priest when, with dad already refused consecrated burial as a suicide, he can't raise the money (or persuade the church) to bury mom with suitably ostentatious solemnity. Beautifully shot in noir terms by Harry Stradling as Granger wanders the seamy side of the city on his dark night of the soul, it might have been more effective had Goldwyn not hired Ben Hecht to expand Andrews' role (as the priest who realises that Granger did the killing, and tries to persuade him to relieve his torment by confessing) after the New York opening. Now saddled with prologue and epilogue in which Andrews tells the story in flashback to a young priest with 'doubts' (by way of restoring his faith, as it did his own, though why remains a mystery), the whole thing is impossibly sententious.