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Paul Muni is a Mexican-American who has graduated from night law school, but soon learns that a law degree doesn't make you a lawyer. He heads out of town and gets a job as a bouncer at Eugene Pallette's bar. He quickly becomes so invaluable that Pallette cuts him in for a quarter of the take. Meanwhile, Pallette's wife, Bette Davis, develops an itch for him.

Muni is terrific, as always, and the cast, which includes Margaret Lindsay, Henry O'Neill, and Soledad Jiménez, work very well in this tale about a man trying to crash through the racial barrier the right way. That the film makers got this much through the Production Code is a major accomplishment, but this needs to have been a pre-code movie, with all the dirt and sluttishness that implies.

BORDERTOWN (Warner Brothers, 1935), directed by Archie Mayo, stars Paul Muni in one of his many ethnic characterizations for which he is famous. Best known for his Italian accented SCARFACE (1932), followed by his latter biographical passages as both French Louis Pasteur and Emile Zola, along with the Chinese Wang in THE GOOD EARTH (1937), Muni attempts one that of a Mexican who breaks away from his people to make something of himself outside his jurisdiction. As much as BORDERTOWN virtually belongs to Muni during its entire 90 minutes, the movie overall is noted more as a Bette Davis film shortly before her achieving super stardom by 1937. Even though Davis' character comes late into the story (35 minutes from its start), she makes the most out of her character enough to gather the most attention.

Johnny Farada Ramirez (Paul Muni), is a young Hispanic man living with his people in the Mexican quarter of Los Angeles, California. Labeled "THE tough guy of a tough neighborhood," Johnny has made something of himself by studying five years at the Pacific Night Law School, and graduating with other would-be lawyers of all ethnic background. With a diploma in hand, as witnessed by his aged mother (Soledad Jimenez) and close friend, a priest, better known as Padre (Robert Barrat). Johnny abandons his garage mechanical job and opens a law office of his own. After leaving the Café La Paloma with her escort and lawyer friend, Brook Mandigan (Gavin Gordon), socialite Dale Elwell (Margaret Lindsay) drives off in high speed down the road, crashing into the truck driven by Johnny's poor friend, Miguel Diego (Arthur Stone). For his very first courtroom case, Johnny poorly constructs himself, losing his case for Miguel, as told to him in the chambers of the Judge (Samuel S. Hinds). After being called a shyster lawyer by Mandigan, Johnny loses his temper by striking Dale's acting attorney. His savage actions find Johnny disbarred. Feeling Mandigan and Dale won their case because they have money, Johnny's goal now to leave home, make something of himself and earning enough money for himself to become respected. A year later, the once down-and-out Johnny Ramirez has now risen from ballroom bouncer to adviser and partner to Charlie Roark (Eugene Pallette), owner of a gambling casino, The Silver Slipper. Knowing his full worth, Johnny wants and gets his 25 percent interest in Roark's business, thanks to Roark's young and attractive wife, Marie (Bette Davis), who happens to be much more interested in Johnny than her middle-aged, fat businessman husband. Because Marie's married to his friend, Johnny respects Charlie and stays away from his wife. After Charlie meets with an accidental death, Johnny inherits Roark's business and renames it La Rueda Casino. While the business is successful, Marie demands more than money. When she discovers Johnny has been seeing Dale Elwell, who's come back into his life to be with her "savage," Marie stops at nothing to break up their relationship. Other members in the cast include familiar Warner Brothers stock players as William B. Davidson (Doctor Carter, the dentist); Hobart Cavanaugh (Howie); and Henry O'Neill (J. Elwell Benson). Look for Arthur Treacher (Roberts, the Butler) and Akim Tamiroff in uncredited roles. If some of the plot sounds familiar, certain scenes were revamped into a trucking story titled THEY DRIVE BY NIGHT (Warner Brothers, 1940) starring George Raft, Ann Sheridan, Ida Lupino and Humphrey Bogart. Raft assumes the Muni part as the ambitious trucker while Alan Hale plays the Pallette part of boss and business partner, but it's Ida Lupino who comes off best reprising Davis' impulsive Marie. While Lupino's performance was easily a standout, her performance is over the top acting as opposed to Davis doing very much the same but in a better and more natural style. For BORDERTOWN, Davis shows her early ability to become a good dramatic actress, especially during the courtroom scene where her method of going insane is different and better constructed than Lupino's.

Though the role of the ambitious Mexican Johnny could have been played by a Hispanic-born actor as Gilbert Roland for example, it's the better known Paul Muni, in darker hairstyle and Spanish accent, who becomes more Mexican by being as opposed to playing a Mexican. Though noted for not being one to be type-cast by playing the same role twice, Muni played a Mexican once more, this time as a historical figure of JUAREZ (1939). Though Bette Davis became Muni's co-star once again, she and Muni shared no scenes together in what would have been their second (and final) collaboration. BORDERTOWN is nearly a forgotten melodrama known for its early screen depiction of racial prejudice among Hispanic-Americans, and a Mexican's uneasy struggle for equality with the outside world. It's not only available on DVD, but can be seen from time to time on cable television's Turner Classic Movies. (*** jumping beans)

Confronting Muni in one scene, Davis suddenly so forcefully expels cigarette smoke from her nose that she looks like a cartoon bull about to charge. But though it's funny, it's not ludicrous: it's one of those startling, inspired B.D. moments.

Warners cast Davis in "Bordertown" when it became apparent that her just-completed loanout to RKO for "Of Human Bondage" was not going to wreck her career, as Warners had feared. Instead, as Davis had gambled, the risky "Bondage" had been her breakout performance. "Bordertown" was a worthy follow-up, with Davis just as compelling as the obsessor rather than the obsessee.

As a poor Mexican-American boy, Muni labors to get a night-school law degree, but can't make a professional living in such a poor neighborhood. Ambitious and tough, he works his way into heading a gambling casino. Though a financial success, he loses his way in a white- dominated social world.

It's 1934 and the notorious Hollywood Production Code has just kicked in. Few studios were more affected than Warner Bros., the home of the uncompromising gangster films of Cagney, Robinson, and Muni. There are elements of the typical rags-to-riches gangster theme in this movie, but the tone and content have altered from the pre-Code product. Note the complete absence of gunplay, dead bodies, brutality, and other staples of such pre-Code classics as Public Enemy (1931), Little Caesar (1931), and Scarface (1932).

Technically, this is not a gangster movie-- Muni may be shady, yet he's no criminal. But that too, I believe, results from trying to get right with the new Code. Note how business rivals try to buy out Palette's casino instead of just muscling-in in classic gangster fashion. And though the girls sport some pretty revealing gowns, Muni refuses Davis's overtures, while remaining unclear on his relationship with Lindsey. Such compromises likely result from the producers not wanting sexual relationships to cross racial lines. Contrast this with the strong hints of incest, no less, in the free-wheeling Scarface.

In short, the movie has the trappings of a gangster film, yet departs in ways that I think are traceable to the newly installed Code. Among others, the new strictures were supposed to end public enthrallment with the underworld by deglamorizing it. Thus, Bordertown lacks many of the risky elements that made Warner Bros. such a riveting and dynamic studio during its classical period.

Now, this is not to say the movie is without interest or entertainment value. It took some guts to make Muni's central character a Mexican-American and cast him in a sympathetic light. In fact, the only thoroughly dislikable character is Lindsey's snobbish white boyfriend (Manville). At the same time, I agree with others who think Muni's performance is too florid, along with an accent that sort of comes and goes. He looks the part, but never gets past the impersonation stage. On the other hand, Davis's one scene of nervous frustration while alone in a room is a little gem of mounting hysteria, and makes me appreciate how well she emoted with her expressive eyes. However, it's Margaret Lindsay who walks off with the movie, at least in my view. Her devious upper-class lady is compellingly natural and unaffected, an interesting contrast to Muni's undiluted staginess.

Anyway, the movie may be a come-down from Warner's pre-Code product, but still includes a couple of good twists (e.g. the first courtroom scene). It's also worth a look-see for anyone interested in the evolution of the gangster movie.

Paul Muni was an East European Jew, so naturally he was cast as a Hispanic Californian.

Well, heck, to name just one, Leo Carrillo, a native Hispanic Californian, was cast as everything from Greek to French to Italian to Latino, and so many other "ethnic" actors played various nationalities besides their own heritages.

Muni apparently wore dark makeup for this role, but it wasn't a stereotype; it was, in fact, a very sympathetic character.

Bette Davis never looked lovelier. For years, I have tried to spread my conspiracy theory that she was not made up, but made down, that she was, in fact, a very lovely lady and the Westmore family apparently had it in for her and put the make-up on in such a way that her looks were coarsened, and she was aged long before her time.

She was such a great actress that her looks didn't matter, but she was very attractive and I find it a shame she wasn't allowed to show her natural beauty.

The female, though, who stole this movie, both in looks and in animated characterization, was Margaret Lindsay. She was absolutely fascinating in this role as spoiled rich girl, an almost good guy. In fact, she made this movie worth seeing.

The presence of a genuine Hispanic, Soledad Jiménez, gives one pause to wonder why more genuine Hispanics weren't cast in movies like this. She was just great.

The ending was rather puzzling, perhaps a sop to somebody's nativism, but the story was a good one, the acting was generally great, and all of that, with Archie Mayo's directing, make this one worthwhile.