Border Incident

                     

Anthony Mann's Border Incident, from 1949, is a very effective film that falls just short of Mann's best. The climax of the film, in which one of the main characters is crushed to death by a mechanical tiller, occurs a little too early and the villain's comeuppance is not nearly as memorable. As someone once said of Torn Curtain, which also climaxed too early, even Hitchcock couldn't top a murder by gas oven. The other drawback is that this is an MGM production during the dreaded Dore Schary years. The film seems a little too eager to wrap itself in the American flag. Mann was getting better actors and production values here than he did earlier in his career, but this film lacks the hysteric edge of films like The Furies and The Naked Spur.

However, there is much to enjoy and appreciate. This is the fourth of five films Mann did with cinematographer John Alton and it is a visual wonder to behold. Alton's high contrast black and white photography conjures a noir vision out of the Southwest. Grotesque faces in the foreground of deep focus interiors have a similar feel to Welles' use of space in The Lady from Shanghai. The border towns and ranch houses on the screen are striking and sinister, harboring many varieties of homo sapiens reptilius.  

Albert Moss and Alfonso Bedoya

The cast is uniformly good and it is an especial treat to see Arnold Moss chew the scenery (and some fruit) for Mann after his turn as Fouche in The Black Book. I don't remember seeing Howard Da Silva as svelte and effective as he is here. Andre Previn's score is interesting, but overwrought at times; a criticism I could level at a number of scores from this era. Aspects that have not dated as we set about electing a President in 2016, are the host of immigration issues this film investigates. It is a testament to the filmmakers how modern and germane Border Incident still is. (2/20/16)