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20 out of 21 people found the following comment useful :-
"BORDER INCIDENT"--TOP DRAWER FILM NOIR, 16 September 2002
Author: mackjay from Out there in the dark

First off, that look! This is a major John Alton achievement, one of the most atmospheric noirs: brooding overcast Mexican skies dominate many scenes, and several others are shrouded in threatening obscurity. All to the effect of heightening the drama of this taut film. Occasionally, it recalls the dark Mexican ambience of "Ride The Pink Horse", another great South-of-the-border Film Noir.

As for drama, this is an action-packed noir from beginning to end (once past the stentorian narrator we all love to hate--though he keeps it brief). Terrific chase scenes and fights, all done with conviction. The quicksand episodes are downright disturbing.

The cast--where to begin? Ricardo Montalban is just plain great in this one, conveying all the humanity and determination his character requires. And George Murphy does just fine as his counterpart. Some favorite noir villains are on hand and in fine form: Howard Da Silva--subtle and smouldering, Charles McGraw--intimidating and scary.

James Mitchell--a fine, lithe performer. He and Montalban make a great pair. Is it my imagination that there is a very slight touch of homoeroticism between them? Montalban (Pablo Rodriguez), a looker himself, attaches to the handsome Mitchell (Juan Garcia) and in no time they are calling each other "Pablito" and "Juanito" (terms of endearment, no?). Alton and Mann shoot them in tight, intimate closeups at several points. Mitchell's last line is memorable "Now one knows the meaning of the 'soft hands'", referring to the lack of 'bracero' calluses on Montalban's palms.

The horrors of illegal immigration from Mexico have not gone away 50+ years later, they are depicted in this film with honesty and humanity.

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16 out of 16 people found the following comment useful :-
Anthony Mann-John Alton Duo Do It Again!, 28 November 2006
9/10
Author: ccthemovieman-1 from Lockport, NY, United States

Here is some spectacular film noir photography by the same team (Director Anthony Mann and cinematographer John Alton) that brought you He Walked By Night, Ray Deal and T-Man. The photography is as good as anything in those movies, if not better. This is good stuff; great direction, with interesting closeups, wide-angle lenses, low-angle shots, tons of shadows and light. Instead of a big city, we had the desert as the main area. The DVD transfer is terrific, too.

All of this, to me, was more fun to watch than the actual story, although the second half of this movie is extremely tense and well done. It makes up for the first half which is a bit on the sordid side at times and a bit slow at times, but definitely film noir material meaning a feeling of dread just around each corner. The suspense gets really thick in the last 20 minutes when George Murphy is discovered by th sadistic criminals to be an undercover lawman. What happens to Murphy is memorable.

Howard da Silva and Charles MacGraw are effective as the main villains. MacGraw's distinctive voice alone makes him a film noir Hall of Famer. Murphy - known more for his light-hearted hoofer films - does a credible in here and it was interesting to see Ricardo Montalban (of TV's "Love Boat" fame) as such a young man. Those two play the good guys.

This is a tough, all-male cast with no romances or soft stuff. In a way, the atmosphere reminded me a bit of another tough noir, "The Big Combo," although the subject matter here is entirely different than any other noir I know about: immigrants crossing the border. However, unlike the real-life situation that is a major story today, this involves Mexicans crossing the border to do migrant farm work, and then getting robbed and killed by bandits on the way home. Still, the subject of "illegals" is a big part of this story and ironic to watch today in light of what's happening now.

Anyway, if you enjoy literally-dark stories, and am a fan of film noir, check this movie out.

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13 out of 13 people found the following comment useful :-
Anthony Mann makes the crossing from noir to Western..., 29 August 2006
8/10
Author: TrevorAclea from London, England

Border Incident starts off in the typical 'Your Government Working For You' fashion that makes so many noirs start at a crawl before finally getting into the story. The dialogue feels like it hasn't just been approved by every law enforcement body in America and Mexico but written by them as well. At first it looks like Anthony Mann's strong directorial style will never surface through the MGM production line sheen, but having got the advertorial exposition out of the way he seems to gradually wrest control away from the suits the further away he gets from them on location until it's definitely a Mannly film, and one that offers a direct point of transition between his noirs and his dark psychological westerns. By the time its ill-starred characters have moved from a secure world of visual order and perfectly composed balance and traversed a hostile landscape as desolate as the people-smugglers' morality to end up in one of Mann's beloved mountain/canyon shootouts, there's no doubt who is calling the shots.

Mann's trademark violence is also very much in evidence, with the film offering one truly strikingly unpleasant death for 1949 - when shooting and being brutally rifle-butted in the head doesn't finish off the victim, something even more searingly violent does the trick: dust to dust indeed. But that's very much in keeping with the characters' brutally disinterested attitude to death. People aren't just killed, they're literally swallowed by a callous and impersonal land that leaves no trace of their ever having existed. Once there's no more profit to be made from the illegals or their own cohorts, they simply disappear forever. Mann had no equal in using the landscape to define character, but here the landscape itself is not just a character but an accomplice.

A big part of the credit belongs to cinematographer John Alton, who Mann apparently insisted on taking with him when he moved from Eagle-Lion to a contract with Leo. His deep blacks, his great sense of changing perspective (an important visual motif in all of Mann's films), his intelligent use of long lenses to expand the moral and physical distance between protagonists, and one remarkable night sequence where a truck leaves an almost luminous trail of dust in its wake help elevate what could have just been a production-line procedural into something much more primal and substantial. It's not just a matter of making striking images - the director and cinematographer's complimentary visual imaginations don't simply serve the story but also establish these characters' place in the world and their shifting relationships as power and loyalty become increasingly fluid commodities.

Ricardo Montalban and George Murphy may seem unlikely leads, but they work better than expected, and there's a great cast of character players to back them up - Alfonso Bedoya, Arnold Ross (so memorable in Mann's Reign of Terror/The Black Book), Charles MacGraw, Arthur Hunnicutt and the great Sig Rumann. Quietly towering over them all is Howard Da Silva's confident and almost casual ringleader, a man who finds that control is illusory. Despite having the best (but still unshowy) dialogue, the temptations to become a stereotype are avoided in favor of a much more interesting and rounded creation - he doesn't need to act menacing because he has people to do that for him.

Like most of Mann's noirs (with the exception of the period thriller Reign of Terror/The Black Book), it's not one of the great Mann films - but it ends up a damn good one. I kinda liked it...

Warners' Region 1 DVD boasts a good transfer and an excellent commentary by Dana Polan and the original theatrical trailer.

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13 out of 14 people found the following comment useful :-
Terrific, Taut, & Terrifying Movie about Farming, 23 September 2005
9/10
Author: manfromlaramie-1 from North Carolina, United States

An underrated gem from the cannon of Anthony Mann. Two agents - one American, one Mexican - cooperate on an investigation into illegal immigrant farm labour. The bad guys are the people smugglers, and boy are they bad - evil, ruthless and sadistic. Contains scenes of extreme violence which Hollywood tolerated in certain westerns and noirs of the late 40's post-war era, and this is kind of a western noir crime movie with lots of vegetables. Its a movie that could give you nightmares, especially if you approach it unaware due to its age, that its actually quite disturbingly brutal and relentless.

Easily ranks as Ricardo Montoblan's finest performance, and only makes one baffled as to how he became such a shameless ham later in life with the likes of Fantasy Island. George Murphy, who plays the American agent, had a fascinating career. Dropping out of Yale to become a coal stoker, he switched to a tap dancing hoofer in 30's pictures, then a solid supporting actor in war pictures. Following the lead of his pal Ronnie Reagan he entered Republican politics, rising to become a member of the US Senate for California.

John Alton lensed this picture, and his monochrome work is a remarkably beautiful achievement. Only a year after this movie Alton would photograph An American In Paris - easily one the best Technicolor movies ever shot.

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11 out of 13 people found the following comment useful :-
Pure cinema, 17 July 2006
8/10
Author: Michael Bo (michael.bo@pol.dk) from Copenhagen, Denmark

At the outset here, I have to ask, Who cares if this is a film noir or not? If not, does it detract from it? If it is, does that enhance it as a work of art? Of course it doesn't, the debate is arbitrary and nonsensical. It makes no difference. Film noir was not a concept until the 1960's anyway, so the discussion is not only irrelevant, it is decidedly un-academic.

First and foremost, 'Border Incident' is a miraculously involving, dynamic piece of cinema. The voice-overs in the beginning and the one at the end have dated really badly with their flag-waving patriotism and faux-documentary style, but the 75 minutes in the middle are riveting.

Ricardo Montalban and George Murphy are detectives, respectively Mexican and American, with a mission to protect the Mexican braceros, farm workers, who are smuggled over the border and robbed, murdered and dropped in the quicksand, when they come back with money in their pockets. They infiltrate themselves into the the band of cutthroats to stop the trafficking.

The theme is contemporary to us, to say the least. And the way the story is told is relentless, stylish and urgent. It is brilliantly shot, wonderfully lit and edited like no-one's business. And it is tough as nails, there is a gruesome scene involving some farm machinery ... I will not go into details, but you might want to put your kids to bed in time.

A truly great movie, pure cinema. And call it what you want, for all I care. Noir, western-noir, whatever.

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9 out of 10 people found the following comment useful :-
Fifty-six And 1/2 Years On The Road To Nowhere, 8 June 2006
8/10
Author: Richard Green (Patriotlad@aol.com) from New Haven County, Connecticut

One of the few benefits of working late hours is the chance to see hard-to-find movies on Turner Classic Movies ( TCM ) and on a few other cable television channels ( ENCORE ). One of the reasons to see 'film noir' productions on TCM is that they seldom circulate in any other forums, and also, the way these films were made works OK on a regular television screen and system.

"Border Incident" is one of those TCM presentations I've seen more than once now, and I am most favorably impressed with it. My initial vote was for a seven but after re-thinking it, I sent in a re-vote of eight.

The camera work, cinematography, was A + in my opinion. It has the best characteristics of what we would now call "docu-drama." Some of these older movies have great acting and corny plots, and in some "film noir" stories you get great story-telling and B + acting. I guess that's why they were called "B" movies.

Actually, that's not true, as I believe the "B" assignment meant that the movie was sent out as the second part of a double feature package.

Fifty-six years after the facts which make up this docu-drama were deemed to be important, the only change in them facts is for the worse.

Greed and opportunism still dominate the "politics of temporary labor" or more accurately, the "politics of cheap labor." There's something gnarly about this movie, and it isn't just about the obvious elements of the plot, being avarice, sadism and murder ....

As a young lad growing up in Texas, I learned first hand how difficult life was and could be for migrant farm workers. Mexican and native-born.

The people-smuggling business has been much in the news lately and it has been the basic theme of several really well-done movies, and I can recommend "The Transporter" as being one, and "The Empire Of The Wolves" with Jean Reno as being another to see on DVD.

There's a lot of real humanity in "Border Incident," and yet it all plays out in a stark and tragic way ....

It's definitely not a modernistic or post-modern cinematic mess.

It's a quality film drama on a very important subject.

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9 out of 10 people found the following comment useful :-
Gritty drama about illegal aliens remains as topical as it is stylish, 5 November 2001
9/10
Author: bmacv from Western New York

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

In their Eagle-Lion days, director Anthony Mann and cinematographer John Alton were the undisputed A-team of B-movies (T-Men, Raw Deal). When their lavish talents got them an offer to work for MGM, they stayed with the tried-and-true in Border Incident, which in its narrative and some of its magical photography echoes T-Men. It's a story about the ruthlessness of the migrant-worker trade between Mexico and California's great agricultural valleys, and it remains as topical today as it was in 1949 (if not more so). Teaming up to close down the human pipeline are Mexican agent Ricardo Montalban and American George Murphy, who perilously go undercover. The trail leads them to a brutal rancher (Howard DaSilva) with a cadre of murderous henchmen, who brokers the deals. As in T-Men, one of the agents is killed, by means of a terrifying piece of farm machinery, as his partner watches in silence lest he give himself away. When the braceros (as the laborers are called) grow inconvenient, they are "disappeared" into a quicksand mire known as the Canyon of Death; the terminally gruff Charles McGraw emits a girlish shriek as he topples in. Border Incident is hard-edged and unsentimental, and probably a fairly accurate, if lurid, indictment of the traffic in south-of-the-border human labor, circa midcentury. One can only hope that conditions have improved since them; movies, plainly, have not.

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7 out of 7 people found the following comment useful :-
Absolutely First Class, 2 September 2004
Author: jimmccool from woking

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

* contains spoilers *

A first class little thriller, which contains scenes of violence [torture by electric shock] and death [by farm tractor and harrow!] which were surely very explicit for its period, and remain quite shocking today. Also shocking is the idea that Ricardo Montalban's character is unable to prevent the death of his fellow-agent. Expectations are upset - can a hero really be allowed to die [at least one user, below, has been upset by the film's refusal to follow the set formula] ?

And yes, it IS noir [although that is surely a subjective term], for the photography, the bleakness, the cynicism...

Deserves a place in the collection of anyone interested in late 40s US film. Excellent.

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5 out of 5 people found the following comment useful :-
Film Noire Sans Femme Fatale, 22 August 2006
8/10
Author: (bsmith5552@rogers.com) from Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

Director Anthony Mann is probably best remembered for the series of gritty westerns he made with James Stewart in the 1950s. However prior to this he directed some memorable film noire classics of which "Border Incident" is one of the best. Devoid of the usual film noire "femme fatale", it is nonetheless a dark and unusually (for the time) violent film.

The plot concerns the efforts of the Mexican and American Immigration Services to stem the flow of illegal farm workers crossing the border into the US illegally. To this end the Mexicans assign Pablo Rodrgues (Ricardo Montalban) and the Americans, Jack Bearnes (George Murphy) to work under cover to find the sources of both the illegal traffic and the grizzly murders of workers crossing back into Mexico with their earnings.

They discover that the head of the operation is Owen Parkson (Howard DaSilva). His cohorts include Arnold Moss and Alfonso Bedoya as a couple of ruthless murders, Charles McGraw and Arthur Hunnicutt as his foreman and assistant and Sig Ruman as his Mexican "recruiter".

The film is both dark (most of the film takes place at night) and violent. At the beginning we see the brutal stabbings of several helpless workers returning home by Moss, Bedoya and company and the unceremonious dumping of the bodies into a pool of quicksand. Later, one of the characters meets a particularly gruesome end under a large farm cultivator.

Montalbon and Murphy in particular, turn in excellent performances. Both live on life's edges in their efforts to bring the criminals to justice. Sig Ruman is very good as the brutal Mexican contact. McGraw walks away with the villain's honors as the devious foreman. In fact the whole cast is excellent.

As this film was produced by MGM, Mann was given a larger budget than usual. The scenes are well constructed and lit to give one that classic black and white feeling of impending doom. It will keep you glued to the screen from start to finish.

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6 out of 7 people found the following comment useful :-
Situation in 1949 and also in 2006 !, 9 June 2006
6/10
Author: whpratt1 from United States

It is hard to believe that this film deals with Mexican crop workers trying to find work and happiness in America and is the same situation that has escalated into a huge problem in the year 2006. Ricardo Montalban,(Pablo Rodriquez), "Dynasty,'89 TV Series, plays an undercover Immagration Officer who tires to find out who is taking advantage of Mexican people by taking their money for entrance into the U.S. and making them disappear because of not having the proper paper work. George Murphy, (Jack Bearnes), "Battleground",'49 works as an agent along with Pablo and gives an outstanding supporting role. By the way, George Murphy became a U.S.Senator from California in real life. Howard DaSilva, (Owen Parkson),"The Great Gatsby",'74 plays an evil dude who is into all kinds of crooked deals. Great 1949 film about problems we are facing today in the United States.

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