- Although one tagline for Anthony Mann's Side Street advertises that "Fate dropped thirty thousand dollars in his lap!", the fact is that the film's hero, Joe Norson (Farley Granger), stole that money from a lawyer named Backett (Edmund Ryan). Granted, Backett and his hulking accomplice Garsell (James Craig) acquired it by having Lucille Colner (Adele Jergens) extort a well-to-do dope (Paul Harvey), but Norson certainly didn't know the money's provenance back when he swiped it. Of course, he probably would have thought twice before taking it if he had known that Lucille's body would end up in the East River, but Norson was thinking only of his pregnant wife Ellen (Cathy O'Donnell) and his recently lost job.
- Once their baby is born, however, Norson begins feeling the pangs of guilt and attempts to return the stolen cash. To everyone's surprise, Backett claims to have no idea what he's talking about. Look, the filing cabinet has been replaced with a water cooler! In another surprising development, the bar owner (Edwin Max) who had been holding the money for Norson has gone into hiding, presumably after absconding with the cash. But he must not have hid well enough from Garsell, which just leaves another murder for the police (Paul Kelly, Charles McGraw) to pin on Norson. It's going to take a lot of amateur sleuthing and more than a little luck for Norson to figure a way out of this one.
- While Side Street's climactic car chase may have seemed pretty exciting back in 1950, modern audiences are more likely to appreciate its location filming, from the opening bird's-eye views of New York City to its detours through neighborhood bars and seedy apartments. The film also excels at letting audiences in on secrets that it hides from its naive protagonist. When the bar owner agrees to hold on to Norson's wrapped package of money, for example, it's immediately obvious to the audience that he's going to sneak a look inside. In a later scene, Norson thinks he's cleverly interrogating a nightclub singer (a scene-stealing Jean Hagen), but the audience realizes that she's setting him up for a fall. While O'Donnell doesn't get as much to do as she did in the same year's They Live by Night, Granger continues to demonstrate his penchant for playing well-intentioned patsies whose lives are threatened by a single serious lapse in judgement.
