The Films of Noir City 2014

Let me begin by saying that I will not be attempting to write something about every film at the festival, or even every film my wife and I saw. I have already touched on the first film, 1943's Journey Into Fear, which is a slight, enjoyable film, but not one I'd classify as film noir. If it is film noir, well then, it seems like every espionage movie from the 40s must be film noir as well - and I doubt even the most ardent noir hound would go there. It seems obvious that the festival programmer(s) wanted an Orson Welles double feature, so they stretched the definition so that this could play with...

 

The Third Man (1949), about which so much has already been written, I will not waste your time here. It's a classic. Harry Lime. Climatic chase through the sewers. If you have never seen it before, please do so.

 

 

Day two kicked off with the rock solid drama Border Incident (1949), which is a film that fires on all cylinders. First, you've got a script by John Higgins, who also scripted such classics as my favorite noir, Raw Deal (1948), the highly influential He Walked By Night (also 1948), and wrote the original story for 1943's The Adventures of Tartu (AKA Sabotage Agent), which is a great British World War II film.

 

Directing, you've got the legendary Anthony Mann, who had just directed the previously mentioned Raw Deal, and would follow this up with more classics such as Side Street (1949), The Tall Target (1951) and The Naked Spur (1953), which was the best of his collaborations with actor James Stewart.

 

Rounding out the technical side, Border Incident features the truly beautiful cinematography of the Academy Award-winning John Alton. He too had worked on Raw Deal and He Walked By Night, and would go on to work on films as diverse as Father of the Bride (1950), Cattle Queen of Montana (1954) and Elmer Gantry (1960). Alton's cinematography has always stood out to me, and his work is well served by being seen on the big screen. He often would set a small spot to reflect in an actor's eyes in close ups, creating a little star of light that would be visibly reflected in their pupil and that, to me at least, serves as his personal trademark. In any case, his work is almost always striking and memorable.

 

Meanwhile, in front of the camera, you've got certified noir heavyweights like Charles McGraw (especially nasty here), Howard da Silva (soon to be blacklisted after the House Un-American Activities Committee hearings, at which he was smeared by fellow actor Robert Taylor), Jack Lambert (a heavy, per usual), as well as the unexpected appearance of Sig Ruman, who is probably best known for his appearances in several Marx Brothers movies. And as leading man and hero, Ricardo Montalban, playing the one thing he always said the studios never let him play - a Mexican. Here, he is a Mexican police officer who goes undercover to expose a criminal gang that smuggles Mexican workers across the border into the U.S. to work as agricultural laborers. George Murphy is second-billed as Montalban's American counterpart, who also goes undercover as a criminal seeking to sell stolen visas for farm workers, in an attempt to put the squeeze on the gang from both sides of the border.

 



Though the subject of the film isn't really dated so much as more evolved, this is still a pretty hard-hitting movie. It makes it clear that, much as it still is, Americans are absolutely dependent on illegal labor to put food on their tables. With that being the case, it also makes it crystal clear - without ever stating it directly - that the typical American's diet is pretty well fortified with crime and human suffering. Not exactly a path to feel-good commercial success (see my previous musings on last year's The Counselor), but it makes for compelling viewing.

 

Sure, some of the gee whiz heroic angles of this are dated, but this film still goes to darker places than most from this period - and from MGM at this time, too. The bad guys here con Mexican workers into paying to be smuggled into the U.S.; then, when they're coming back across the border with the money they've earned, the hoods rob them, kill them, and dump the bodies into a pit of quicksand. Without saying anything specific, I'll also mention that, surprisingly, one of the main characters meets a particularly grisly end.

 

Montalban is good in his role, and given the racial and studio politics of the time, it's a pleasant surprise to see him top-billed. George Murphy is adequate in his role, though not ever entirely convincing (as a character) or that compelling (as an actor). But any inadequacies he may have are more than compensated for by the strong supporting cast, and the forward momentum of the story.

 

I had seen this film before, but never on the big screen, and size does matter. For one thing, as stated above, Alton's cinematography is stunning. Sure, there are some bad matches between beautifully captured location shooting and some fairly obvious studio sets, but overall, this is a real visual treat. Also, the scene where - SPOILER ALERT! SPOILER ALERT! - Murphy's character is menaced by a giant field tiller is one that is much more effective on the big screen.

 

As a crime drama, this is pretty top notch stuff, and as a political drama, it's noteworthy as well. And those two categories are how I would file this, much more than film noir. But it does fit into that category as well, in my opinion, but it would be a secondary way of classifying it. Still, call it what you like, this is an extremely well done and gripping film. How much did I like it? Enough to sit through it in a theater after having already seen it. And enough that we picked up a used copy of it on DVD a couple of days after watching it in said theater.

 



Note: Border Incident was the first film of five on the first Saturday of the Noir City Festival. The last film that day was The Hitch-Hiker (1953). Both featured actor Jose Torvay in supporting parts. It gave the day a nice bookended effect.