Mercado humano

Border Incident is directed by Anthony Mann and adapted to screenplay by John C. Higgins from the George Zuckerman story. It stars Ricardo Montalban, George Murphy, Howard Da Silva, Charles McGraw, Arthur Hunnicutt and James Mitchell. Music is by Andre Previn and cinematography by John Alton.

The great Anthony Mann creates what is the perfect crossover movie that blends film noir style with western shadings. Mann would next go on to make the well regarded psychological westerns with James Stewart, Border Incident is the tasty meat in his noir/western sandwich.

In essence it's a remake of T-Men, only Mann and his team have shifted away from a hustle and bustle city setting to tell a story down on the sweaty American/Mexico border. We are probing into immigration issues, human smuggling and the abuse of such, Mann and his writers daring to portray the human suffering of farm workers from Mexico, lured in as slave labour, only to then be abused and used and much worse...

Having the legendary Alton on photography duties aids the downbeat thematics considerably, whilst also deftly averting attention from what is a pretty bog standard script, the low budgets never a problem where Mann and Alton were concerned. In fact, in noirville they worked it to their advantage with some striking lighting techniques and camera movements.

The pic is often vicious, sadistic even, landing violent scenes in the conscious that refuse to move until it's all over and the screen goes blank. Suspense is never far away in Border Incident, with a mostly on form cast (George Murphy is uneven as McGraw does nasty brilliantly) bringing the material to life as the dream team cloak it all in pictorial assertiveness. Not in the same league as Raw Deal, but highly recommended for reasons already stated. 8/10

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.

Border Incident (1949)

This is an amazing movie. There are moments when it feels a little forced, or once or twice a little politicized, but the rest of the time this is as good as post-war movies get (and I'm a complete devotee of this period). John Alton's photography is worth seeing alone, even without the sound it's so good, not that you would want to avoid the fantastic score by Andre Previn. And the direction by Anthony Mann at the peak of his intensity is sharp and beautifully controlled.

The story is largely broken into two parts, though even these two get complicated, so you have to pay attention. Action moves from Mexican to the American side back and forth, following an American agent and a Mexican one (played by the handsome Ricardo Montalban), both undercover. They cross paths more than once, but largely their stories are independent. Eventually there is a huge and exciting confrontation in the Valley of Death with a thick and rather convincing quicksand pool at the bottom. It becomes something like a Western shootout at this point, something Mann became an expert at, but the movie as a whole has a unique feel to it, neither Western nor noir. Yes, it involves crime, guns, deception, and lots of night stuff (terrific is an understatement), but the underlying tone is to undo a crime syndicate on the border, and to root for the two heroes who are working for a cause (a very un-noir thing to do).

A terrific full review of the movie is at bighousefilm.com (click on reviews), in particular going into the director and cinematographer, and the overall mood of the film. Certainly this was my initial attraction, for both Mann in all his ominous but realistic violence and Alton with his deep focus shadow photography are favorites of mine. There isn't a dull moment in this film just in visual terms. If you watch with your eyes, and see great moving camera, vivid dark night stuff, and some sudden changes of focus (like when the two men are in the field at night toward the end and are suddenly up close in the camera, no cutting, just a fast running to the lens an following with the lens). It's really masterful.

But equally important for those who are curious about context and content beyond the art of it all is the Wikipedia entry on the Bracero program, a collaboration between the US and Mexican governments begun in the 1940s to control legal migrant workers. The need for lots of Mexican labor was pressing when millions of US men joined the army in 1942, and after the war there was pressure to keep the program going. In a way, this movie is pure propaganda to support its continuation, and it did get renewed time and again until 1964 (which is about when Cesar Chavez and the "La Raza" movement grew huge). Naturally, agribusiness didn't like it--their claim was they wanted to pay Americans full wages, not Mexicans, but in truth (apparently) they wanted to let the illegal market expand because illegals were so cheap and required no benefits. Whatever the case, "Border Incident" helps dramatize the need for some kind of program in post-war America just to counteract the bad guys running illegals over the border, to everyone's peril.

Speaking of which, the bad guy in charge is played to perfection by Howard Da Silva (who is not Hispanic, nor Portuguese, but Jewish American from Ohio). His whole cadre of greedy ranchers in the desert is convincing and a thrill, cinematically. There is only a glimpse of a female in the whole movie, and yet there is tenderness at times, especially among the braceros themselves. In a way there is something of the feel of "They Live by Night" here, with the layering of plots and types of people together in the dark desert, shot in the same year. But ultimately this is a far more masculine movie, filled with action and power plays and terrific energy.

Anthony Mann directed this still-timely drama that stars Ricardo Montalban as Mexican agent Pablo Rodriguez, who teams up with American agent Jack Bearnes(played by George Murphy) to tackle the problem of illegal Mexican Immigrant smuggling into California, which has seen many of them mysteriously murdered. Rancher Owen Parkson(played by Howard Da Silva) is chief suspect as the ringleader. Pablo goes undercover from the inside as an immigrant, while Jack investigates from the outside. The case will prove quite dangerous, more than either man realized... Fine drama with solid acting and direction, and an incisive script that wouldn't need much changing to work today, sadly.

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.