Bill Hare
01-18-2010, 02:15 PM
“Duo of Darkness” Achieves Low Budget Gem with Border Incident
Director Nicholas Ray has been justifiably called the “laureate of darkness” for excellent night story blending with haunting photography in such unforgettable film noir hits as They Live by Night (1949) and Humphrey Bogart classic In a Lonely Place as well as the James Dean-Natalie Wood-Sal Mineo story of rebellious youth, Rebel Without a Cause (1955).
The title “duo of darkness” could be reserved with equivalent distinction for one of the best director-cinematographer teams ever to enter the film noir orbit, in which budgeting economy and scenic precision skillfully merged.
Director Anthony Mann and cinematographer John Alton were teamed six times in a short span between 1947 and 1950. Four of these noir works endure over the course of time and repeated viewings as superb achievements both in the genre as well as overall.
Seldom has night ever been displayed with such brutally haunting reality than in the skilled hands of the “duo of darkness” as in their debut effort of T-Men in 1947, moving forward to 1948 with Raw Deal and He Walked by Night and culminating with the film being featured, the 1949 release Border Incident. Mann and Alton etched a tableau of brooding darkness that Edgar Allen Poe, who lived a century earlier, would have admired.
Since Border Incident can be better understood and appreciated in context with viewing all of the Mann-Alton
collaborations, mention of the earlier noir efforts should be briefly reviewed. Their first noir contribution T-Men exemplified the semi-documentary film popular with Mann and other directors of the period. Dennis O’Keefe in tandem with a fellow federal agent who is later killed while O’Keefe watches centers around an effort to thwart a counterfeiting ring operated by a ruthless Los Angeles mob.
One of the film’s most cinematic as well as impact-laden moments occurs when famous noir performer Charles McGraw decides that fellow gang member Wallace Ford has become expendable. The ruthless, sadistic McGraw prompts Ford’s death by turning on the heat to excessive levels in a steam room.
The unique death scene element was captured in another memorable scene involving McGraw as executioner in Border Incident. That imaginative effort will be covered later.
Dennis O’Keefe starred once more with the Mann-Alton tandem one year later in Raw Deal, in which he escapes from prison daringly with the objective of squaring accounts with the mob boss who framed him, played by Raymond Burr before his halcyon television days as brilliant Los Angeles defense attorney Perry Mason in the series bearing that name.
Claire Trevor, one of the most memorable ever femmes fatale in Edward Dmytryk’s Murder, My Sweet (1944), plays a tough woman of experience in love with O’Keefe who finds contrasting competition in the sweeter, younger Marsha Hunt.
O’Keefe runs a gauntlet by night in his effort to reach Los Angeles and settle accounts with Burr, who understandably realizes he has a strong stake in the outcome, namely his life. Burr does his best to see that O’Keefe does not get a chance to square accounts.
The Documentary Flavor
The other 1948 collaborative effort of Mann and Alton dovetails with Border Incident, their final effort released the following year, since the strong documentary flavor manifested in T-Men abounded in He Walks by Night. Richard Basehart stars as a troubled young killer who terrorizes Los Angeles in the dark hours of late night and early morning.
Scott Brady in one of his early starring roles plays a determined young cop whose steadfastness intensifies to find the killer after a fellow officer meets his death after stopping Basehart to interrogate him. The film’s documentary flavor is revealed by focusing on the techniques used by the Los Angeles Police Department to track down a clever and elusive killer.
Jack Webb appears in one of his earliest film roles as an LAPD lab technician who provides insight into the killer, assisting Brady and his fellow officers. He Walks by Night along with the police drama Naked City (1948) directed by Jules Dassin and starring Barry Fitzgerald, Don Taylor and Howard Duff, which was set in New York but bore thematic semi-documentary similarities to the L.A. based drama, were the models Webb shrewdly employed when he starred as L.A.P.D. Sergeant Joe Friday in the successful “Dragnet” television series.
Montalban, Murphy Clash With Two Memorable Noir Villains
Border Incident was a composite of true incidents that occurred in the border struggle of the late forties in which federal agents from Mexico and the United States battled tenaciously to prevent mobsters from importing illegal farm agent from the former country to the latter. This is a struggle that was waged frequently by night, since this was a propitious period to smuggle migrants north beyond the border.
Ricardo Montalban, just beginning to hit his early stride as a leading man, portrays a courageous federal agent from Mexico who forms a team with U.S. agent George Murphy. The agents had operated in tandem before on a case along the Texas-Mexico border, know each other’s methods, and hold a mutual respect for one another.
Leading the force of resistance, and who has established a lucrative racket exploiting Mexican migrant workers, is Howard Da Silva. It was Da Silva who played the bartender-confidante of Ray Milland in the 1945 Billy Wilder noir gem The Lost Weekend and clashed in the role of mob boss with returning veteran Alan Ladd in The Blue Dahlia from a script written by Raymond Chandler. He was also featured along with Jay C. Flippen as the two older bank robber influences on victim of fate Farley Granger in the earlier mentioned They Live by Night.
Da Silva employs as confidante and executioner noir legend Charles McGraw, who,while playing an uncompromisingly honest cop in Richard Fleischer’s super low budget classic The Narrow Margin (1952), used his gravel voice to excellent advantage on the wrong side of the law, as evidenced as a ruthless hired killer alongside sidekick William Conrad in Robert Siodmak’s brutally realistic The Killers (1946) starring blazing newcomers Burt Lancaster and Ava Gardner, based on an Ernest Hemingway story.
While Murphy plays along as someone who wants to become a part of Da Silva’s operation, it becomes increasingly apparent that McGraw is anything but loyal to his boss, and that a clash is inevitable between two opportunistic cons. It also becomes increasingly clear that Murphy can only play his role so long without his true identity and purpose being discovered.
A Creatively Symbolic Death Scene
It was mentioned earlier about the imaginative death scene with McGraw as executioner and Wallace Ford as victim in T-Men. If anything, Murphy’s death at the hands of McGraw is even more imaginatively rendered, and with a strong dose of creative symbolism.
Border Incident was filmed in the Imperial Valley, an area near the Mexican border with myriad acres of tillable land. Murphy is shot in a field in the lonely darkness of late evening. As the U.S. agent lies on the ground drenched in his own blood the ever unmerciful McGraw drives a tractor over his body to provide a swift and painful end to his life.
The method of death strung a symbolic thread over the entire film. Murphy as well as Montalban knew the risk involved in such a perilous undertaking and discussed it openly. The death occurred in a field that by day was filled with migrant workers who had crossed over the border to seek a better life, an expectation that vigilant opportunists as depicted by Da Silva and McGraw in the film exploited to the ultimate.
The stunning images of night were searingly and indelibly rendered by the talented camera’s eye of John Alton. Noir directorial craftsman Anthony Mann did his typical job of sustaining concise pacing without superfluous subject matter.
As for the script, it was tight and lean. It was penned by murder mystery specialist John C. Higgins, who had also written He Walked by Night for Mann. Higgins’ script was adapted from a story by George Zuckerman.
Border Incident provides gripping drama, never letting up, never disappointing. It is a film that should not be missed, especially by those who lust for travels by night in the world of film noir.
Director Nicholas Ray has been justifiably called the “laureate of darkness” for excellent night story blending with haunting photography in such unforgettable film noir hits as They Live by Night (1949) and Humphrey Bogart classic In a Lonely Place as well as the James Dean-Natalie Wood-Sal Mineo story of rebellious youth, Rebel Without a Cause (1955).
The title “duo of darkness” could be reserved with equivalent distinction for one of the best director-cinematographer teams ever to enter the film noir orbit, in which budgeting economy and scenic precision skillfully merged.
Director Anthony Mann and cinematographer John Alton were teamed six times in a short span between 1947 and 1950. Four of these noir works endure over the course of time and repeated viewings as superb achievements both in the genre as well as overall.
Seldom has night ever been displayed with such brutally haunting reality than in the skilled hands of the “duo of darkness” as in their debut effort of T-Men in 1947, moving forward to 1948 with Raw Deal and He Walked by Night and culminating with the film being featured, the 1949 release Border Incident. Mann and Alton etched a tableau of brooding darkness that Edgar Allen Poe, who lived a century earlier, would have admired.
Since Border Incident can be better understood and appreciated in context with viewing all of the Mann-Alton
collaborations, mention of the earlier noir efforts should be briefly reviewed. Their first noir contribution T-Men exemplified the semi-documentary film popular with Mann and other directors of the period. Dennis O’Keefe in tandem with a fellow federal agent who is later killed while O’Keefe watches centers around an effort to thwart a counterfeiting ring operated by a ruthless Los Angeles mob.
One of the film’s most cinematic as well as impact-laden moments occurs when famous noir performer Charles McGraw decides that fellow gang member Wallace Ford has become expendable. The ruthless, sadistic McGraw prompts Ford’s death by turning on the heat to excessive levels in a steam room.
The unique death scene element was captured in another memorable scene involving McGraw as executioner in Border Incident. That imaginative effort will be covered later.
Dennis O’Keefe starred once more with the Mann-Alton tandem one year later in Raw Deal, in which he escapes from prison daringly with the objective of squaring accounts with the mob boss who framed him, played by Raymond Burr before his halcyon television days as brilliant Los Angeles defense attorney Perry Mason in the series bearing that name.
Claire Trevor, one of the most memorable ever femmes fatale in Edward Dmytryk’s Murder, My Sweet (1944), plays a tough woman of experience in love with O’Keefe who finds contrasting competition in the sweeter, younger Marsha Hunt.
O’Keefe runs a gauntlet by night in his effort to reach Los Angeles and settle accounts with Burr, who understandably realizes he has a strong stake in the outcome, namely his life. Burr does his best to see that O’Keefe does not get a chance to square accounts.
The Documentary Flavor
The other 1948 collaborative effort of Mann and Alton dovetails with Border Incident, their final effort released the following year, since the strong documentary flavor manifested in T-Men abounded in He Walks by Night. Richard Basehart stars as a troubled young killer who terrorizes Los Angeles in the dark hours of late night and early morning.
Scott Brady in one of his early starring roles plays a determined young cop whose steadfastness intensifies to find the killer after a fellow officer meets his death after stopping Basehart to interrogate him. The film’s documentary flavor is revealed by focusing on the techniques used by the Los Angeles Police Department to track down a clever and elusive killer.
Jack Webb appears in one of his earliest film roles as an LAPD lab technician who provides insight into the killer, assisting Brady and his fellow officers. He Walks by Night along with the police drama Naked City (1948) directed by Jules Dassin and starring Barry Fitzgerald, Don Taylor and Howard Duff, which was set in New York but bore thematic semi-documentary similarities to the L.A. based drama, were the models Webb shrewdly employed when he starred as L.A.P.D. Sergeant Joe Friday in the successful “Dragnet” television series.
Montalban, Murphy Clash With Two Memorable Noir Villains
Border Incident was a composite of true incidents that occurred in the border struggle of the late forties in which federal agents from Mexico and the United States battled tenaciously to prevent mobsters from importing illegal farm agent from the former country to the latter. This is a struggle that was waged frequently by night, since this was a propitious period to smuggle migrants north beyond the border.
Ricardo Montalban, just beginning to hit his early stride as a leading man, portrays a courageous federal agent from Mexico who forms a team with U.S. agent George Murphy. The agents had operated in tandem before on a case along the Texas-Mexico border, know each other’s methods, and hold a mutual respect for one another.
Leading the force of resistance, and who has established a lucrative racket exploiting Mexican migrant workers, is Howard Da Silva. It was Da Silva who played the bartender-confidante of Ray Milland in the 1945 Billy Wilder noir gem The Lost Weekend and clashed in the role of mob boss with returning veteran Alan Ladd in The Blue Dahlia from a script written by Raymond Chandler. He was also featured along with Jay C. Flippen as the two older bank robber influences on victim of fate Farley Granger in the earlier mentioned They Live by Night.
Da Silva employs as confidante and executioner noir legend Charles McGraw, who,while playing an uncompromisingly honest cop in Richard Fleischer’s super low budget classic The Narrow Margin (1952), used his gravel voice to excellent advantage on the wrong side of the law, as evidenced as a ruthless hired killer alongside sidekick William Conrad in Robert Siodmak’s brutally realistic The Killers (1946) starring blazing newcomers Burt Lancaster and Ava Gardner, based on an Ernest Hemingway story.
While Murphy plays along as someone who wants to become a part of Da Silva’s operation, it becomes increasingly apparent that McGraw is anything but loyal to his boss, and that a clash is inevitable between two opportunistic cons. It also becomes increasingly clear that Murphy can only play his role so long without his true identity and purpose being discovered.
A Creatively Symbolic Death Scene
It was mentioned earlier about the imaginative death scene with McGraw as executioner and Wallace Ford as victim in T-Men. If anything, Murphy’s death at the hands of McGraw is even more imaginatively rendered, and with a strong dose of creative symbolism.
Border Incident was filmed in the Imperial Valley, an area near the Mexican border with myriad acres of tillable land. Murphy is shot in a field in the lonely darkness of late evening. As the U.S. agent lies on the ground drenched in his own blood the ever unmerciful McGraw drives a tractor over his body to provide a swift and painful end to his life.
The method of death strung a symbolic thread over the entire film. Murphy as well as Montalban knew the risk involved in such a perilous undertaking and discussed it openly. The death occurred in a field that by day was filled with migrant workers who had crossed over the border to seek a better life, an expectation that vigilant opportunists as depicted by Da Silva and McGraw in the film exploited to the ultimate.
The stunning images of night were searingly and indelibly rendered by the talented camera’s eye of John Alton. Noir directorial craftsman Anthony Mann did his typical job of sustaining concise pacing without superfluous subject matter.
As for the script, it was tight and lean. It was penned by murder mystery specialist John C. Higgins, who had also written He Walked by Night for Mann. Higgins’ script was adapted from a story by George Zuckerman.
Border Incident provides gripping drama, never letting up, never disappointing. It is a film that should not be missed, especially by those who lust for travels by night in the world of film noir.