The Tijuana Story

This extremely dull would-be exploitation movie from Columbia Pictures and untalented producer Sam Katzman is hard to sit through. The titillating elements of the story remain unfulfilled, and instead we're treated to an hour or so of flat acting, sad excuse for "crusading" preachiness, and low-budget boredom.

James Darren is here for Katzman's targeted youth audience and offers nothing in a role where a charismatic young actor might have impressed. His heroine/love interest Joy Stoner is pretty, but can't act, perhaps a fitting complement to Darren. It was her only featured movie role.

As for Robert Blake, he has a nothing part playing the son of hero Rodolfo Acosta (very boring as the crusading Mexican newspaperman).

TIJUANA STORY is a tepid crime drama based on a true story of newspaperman, Manuel Acosta Mesa (Rudolfo Acosta) who takes on the mob / syndicate led by fictionalized mobster Peron Diaz (Paul Newlan). After Acosta digs up the names of influential politicians involved in Diaz's illegal activities, he is targeted for assassination.

The movie opens with a newsreel-style recounting of Acosta's importance as a whistle blower, followed by a talking head American journalist who actually wrote about the Acosta case. His tone suggests that Acosta Mesa had brought trouble upon himself due to the provocative nature of his reporting. While the real-life story of this brave journalist could have made a good, hard-hitting exposé, but we're in producer Sam Katzman territory, which means poor production values, one-take performances and sensationalized dramatics.

The denizens of Tijuana are shown as mostly villainous peasants, while the top line casting is strictly from Hollywood and Vine. For example, the main Hispanic mob boss is played by Paul Newlan, who was born in Plattsburgh, Nebraska. Acosta's daughter and the newspaper publisher are both played by Anglos. The sassy bar girl who talks Mitch into buying marijuana makes the mistake of trying on an irritating Mexican accent.

Despite these handicaps, a few performances stand out: Rudolfo Acosto is a strong presence playing against type as the hero but his delivery is stilted. Jean Willes plays the stereotypical mob moll with some class, and James Darren and Robert Blake make an impression as a disaffected J.D. and as Acosta's son, respectively. Darren had been signed to a long-term contract with Columbia Pictures in the summer of 1956, and TIJUANA STORY was one of several B-movies that featured the young actor. However, he plays a small role here in scenes that look like they were an afterthought and are barely connected with the Acosta plot-line.

On balance, none of these thespians are supported by the clichéd screenplay by the usually competent Lou Morheim, which contains its share of clumsy dialog, such as, "I know you've had some results crashing into walruses," "A little bit of that would put hair on my chest, oh, mama," "What are you, an avenging angel?"

Likewise, the direction and staging of many scenes is unimaginative and at times unintentionally funny, as when faux jazz players blithely continue their playing on a night club stage while half the cast is fist fighting and throwing chairs around on the dance floor.

László Kardos' The Tijuana Story (1957) stars James Darren -- Gidget (1959) -- and features Robert Blake -- Baretta, Mickey in The Little Rascals & Our Gang -- both of whom are also in another lesser-known B-Noir: Fred F. Sears' Rumble on the Docks (1956) which is what led me to The Tijuana Story.

James Darren plays a tough American high school punk who vacations with two of his punk buddies. They buy some marijuana in a Nightclub that is a front for a Mexican syndicate which later ends with tragedy. This is where the film seems to be propaganda and it weakens the story which focuses on Robert Blake's character Enrique Acosta Mesa's father Manuel Acosta Mesa, played by Rodolfo Acosta, who is a journalist trying to expose the syndicate which causes him predictable trouble.

The acting is decent but sometimes wooden from the supporting cast. Paul Newlan as Peron Diaz is a convincing crime boss. Overall the movie is decent, but sometimes a bit slow with very little action, It's worthwhile viewing if you enjoy B-noir films, though there is nothing special about it, e.g., the music, the cinematography. Etc. I watched it while completing Robert Blake's film noir films.

Gallant little guy standing up to the mob. Hardly an original storyline (sub-Jimmy Stewart), but this is a dramatised documentary, quite a common low-cost option in 1957, celebrating the recent martyrdom of newspaper editor Manuel Acosta Mesa, who had been trying to clean up Tijuana single-handed. The funeral tribute, with which the film ends ("He did not die in vain"), would earn a belly-laugh today, with its naïve hopes about turning the city back into a family-friendly community from which gangsterism had been banished forever. One glimpse of modern-day Tijuana would have made those audiences feel they'd been watching a kids' game 'Let's Play Narcos'.

Only one performance stands out - the villain Diaz, played by Paul Newlan, highly convincing, with gangsterism deeply embedded in him. No-one else comes close. The 20-year old James Darren gets star billing, but a curiously small part that offers him few opportunities and hardly affects the plot. It just adds a touch of pathos: a schoolkid on vacation, wanting to try his first grown-up Mexican weekend, but doomed from the moment a bar-girl offers to sell him marijuana ("Are you too frightened?"), leading indirectly to his death. The rest of it is disappointingly mechanical, both in plot and in delivery, hardly worth watching.

(And to think, despite my fluent Spanish, it had never occurred to me that Tijuana translates as 'Auntie Jane'!)

Crusading newspaperman Rodolfo Acosta takes on 'the syndicate' in Tijuana after a young man goes berserk when the police try to arrest him for damage he's done while under the influence of marijuana. The syndicate promptly tries to shut him up, first by scaring off his advertisers, and then by any means they deem necessary.

The notes indicate the lead's character is based on a real-life newspaperman named Manuel Acosta Meza. A brief Google search could not turn up the individual. Apparently it's not that unusual a name.

The movie is a variety of the sort of movie like THE MIAMI STORY. It is a very sincere picture, but also obviously a cheap movie, with bare, simple sets. A few location sessions around Tijuana help, but despite its statement that the town was cleaning up, by the time I was there in 1971, it was pretty sleazy again.