Linciaggio

Santa Marta is a small agricultural town in California. Mexicans are the fruit pickers and there is tension between the races. Paul Rodriguez and his friend Lopo Chavez are pickers. They get into a car accident and fight with a couple of local white boys. The two locals keep a grudge and spread discontent. Paul's friend Sunny Garcia works at a small Spanish-language newspaper. She meets Larry Wilder at a dance. He's the new editor of the bigger white newspaper. A fight breaks out at the dance and an unscrupulous reporter builds it up to be a riot. Paul steals an ice cream truck and becomes a fugitive after a series of incidents.

This is trying to tackle the theme of ingrained racism. It's interesting that there are differing elements within the community, both good and bad. The initial meeting with a cop is an interesting one. It's a little shocking to have a good cop dealing with these kids like human beings. There are good cops and bad cops. There are good parents and bad parents. Even the lead character is not an ally for most of the movie until he turns into a hero. The movie is not doing the easy hit. More than anything, it shows how irresponsible media can fire up the baser instincts. The movie is showing how civility can be easily lost and the ugliness bubble up.

After watching The Lawless I've come to feel there is a back story in the making of this film. First of all it comes from Paramount which was not a studio known for making socially significant films. But secondly with director Joseph Losey, a man who would shortly leave the USA never to work on our soil again, the producers were Paramount's Dollar Bills as they were known.

This is a Pine-Thomas Production and they supplied all the B films it seemed for Paramount in about 15 years from World War I until Bill Pine's death. The usual run of films for these two were decent action adventure, western, or occasionally a noir film. But this one is a real odd fish in their credits. Not to say it isn't good, because it's good and powerful. Timely too, coming out right around the time Joe McCarthy was telling he had lists of varying amounts as to how many Communists there were employed in our government.

Times like those give way to people's primal fears. The Lawless deals with the mob mentality of a southern California town when a young Mexican kid, Lalos Rios, gets himself in a jackpot during a brawl that breaks out at a dance. During his flight he gets even more problems when the cop driving the car that picked him up crashes after the driver loses control and is killed. The reason it crashes because the cop in the back seat starts pounding on him.

Ihe Lawless is about fear and people lose their trust in the law when fear steps in. Young Rios is afraid of what the mob will do and the mob of whites who were comfortably in the majority are afraid of the growing numbers of these darker and different people.

Standing up for law and order in its best sense is the editor of the local newspaper MacDonald Carey. He pays big time for going against the mob. As did director Joseph Losey and many others at that time.

Elements of They Won't Forget and Fury are found in this film and later on MGM put a lot more dollars into Trial, a film about the same issues addressed here.

Besides Carey and Rios, you'll see some outstanding performances by Gail Russell as the Mexican American love interest for Carey and by an old flame of Carey's Lee Patrick who plays a right wing reporter slanting the story against Rios for all its worth. Watch Patrick's facial expressions as she's dictating copy, they're frightening and unforgettable.

Made on the shoestring Pine-Thomas budget that Paramount normally allotted for them, The Lawless is an uncomfortable reminder of past times with very much relevance for the present.

Tightly paced social problem programmer is well directed by Losey. Carey was never the strongest of leading men and perhaps the film would have been better served by an actor with more gravitas in the lead but he turns in an acceptable performance. Gail Russell is fine in the limited screen time she has but her role isn't really noteworthy. The person who is underutilized is Lee Patrick as an out of town reporter, whenever she's on screen the other actors recede into the background so sharp is her presence, the mark of a truly outstanding supporting performer. The story is sadly relevant even today, how people can be swayed by mob rule and unreasoning prejudice.

..And some of those "B"s are far better than some of the "A"s of today. Macdonald Carey is at his best here as an editor who slowly becomes involved in the conditions and prejudices against the California fruit pickers. this movie is way ahead of its time in how it depicts a small city in the grip of discrimination and fear. Gail Russell, though never a great lead, is luminous here and utterly convincing as Mac's opposite - the editor or a Mexican newspaper. I was completely caught up in and the ending is quite nerve-wracking, you cannot predict which way it is going to go. The supporting cast is also terrific and the crowd scenes and slow panning action for the dance in the country and the street scenes is amazing. I understand the director was a victim of the McCarthy witchhunt and lived out his days in England where he directed "Dirk Bogarde" in "the Servant" another great movie. Highly recommended, an 8 out of 10.

THE DIVIDING LINE originally called THE LAWLESS in the States is a brilliant film from Joseph Losey. I suppose the American title may have sounded like a Western film so they changed it for England. What it is, is a indictment of the racial emotions and fears of the 1950's in America. The cast is superb. MacDonald Carey has never been better and he has always been an under rated performer in films. Also Gail Russell gives a performance of such honesty and naturalness that you feel you are seeing her for the first time. She was always a great beauty and good leading lady but here she proves that her early death is even more tragic because of what we know she was capable of. The film is unmissable.