BORDER INCIDENT (1949)

 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 95m 33s

"THE SHAME OF TWO NATIONS!"

Border security between the United States and Mexico has been a topic of concern for over 100 years. Over that period of time, there has been interminable political discourse on the subject. At best the border crisis remains an ongoing challenge, at worst perhaps there is no solution. Given the historical duration of the border control issue, the story of undocumented migrants possesses timeless weight. A docudrama intended to shake up the American consciousness of its time, BORDER INCIDENT is a gritty noir Western brought to life by the assured filmmaking teamwork of director Anthony Mann and cinematographer John Alton.

Crude but efficient:  the quicksand burial

The film noir staircase implies a dangerous descent

The shining

The awakening

The film's title suggests an isolated occurrence of some kind, though the modern viewer aware of the border's long history is sure to question that notion. Sadly, the human nature concerns emphasized in BORDER INCIDENT are unlikely to find resolution in the actual world. Mann's taut film is based upon actual cases compiled by the Immigration and Naturalization Service of the U.S. Department of Justice. In dependable docudrama fashion, the movie begins with narration that alerts the viewer to the real-life social problems that must be addressed. The main setting is the Imperial Valley of Southern California, just north of the California-Mexico border, where a steady army of tough hands are required to harvest crops. Because the amount of legal immigrant farmworkers (known as "braceros") is shown to be restricted, a dark undercurrent of illegal immigration networking has metastasized between Mexico and the US. The high demand for Mexican labor has led to an endless trail of migrants who cross the border in an unauthorized manner. The basic dynamic is simple to understand:  as long as there are people willing to cross the border illegally in the hope of improving their prospects, there will be those eager to systematically exploit them. The illegal entrants who survive their uncomfortable journey (not all of them do) are paid ridiculously substandard wages. Worse than that, some are subsequently robbed of their earnings before being badly maimed or, more likely, left for the boneyard. Given the obvious international problem, a combined government initiative between the United States and Mexico is introduced to fight illegal immigration racketeering. The ardent government men devoted to the cause include Pablo Rodriguez (Ricardo Montalbán), a Mexican, who prepares to go undercover as an illegal bracero, and Jack Bearnes (George Murphy), the American representative whose purpose is to shadow Rodriguez and gather evidence against the individuals involved in human smuggling activities. From the very beginning, the respective assignments are shown to be inherently dangerous.

The illegal migrants learn they have no rights

Danger zone

Trapped

The ongoing nature of the border crisis fits well into the framework of the film noir universe, where thorny social problems tend to be the order of the day. BORDER INCIDENT is exceptionally noir in its unflinching presentation of its corrupt agri-businessmen who prey upon Mexican laborers desperate for whatever small amount of money they can earn. Marxist assumptions underscore the narrative's specific illegal labor operation, which is masterminded by a cutthroat capitalist figure:  the supposedly respectable rancher Owen Parkson (Howard Da Silva exudes a certain quiet cool to villainy) routinely and systematically exploits a revolving door of migrant workers. The undocumented migration scheme utilized by Parkson reveals a socialist's worst suspicions about the fundamental inequalities forged by untethered capitalism:  reprehensible men of wealth like Parkson persistently profit from the decent poor. This concern is especially apparent once the illegals are deposited at Parkson's farm, where they are treated with less dignity than any person with an active conscience would hope. The workers necessary for each harvest are called paisanos, wets and monkeys.

A mirror image of Bearnes emphasizes the noir duality theme

The blonde problem

An irredeemable figure finds himself on the wrong side of a rifle

BORDER INCIDENT builds to a symbolic confrontation between government men and the unscrupulous lawbreakers at the helm of the human smuggling ring. With the film's stunningly brutal sacrifice of a law enforcement agent, one of the most disturbing killings any film genre has to offer, it is implied the racketeers are sophisticated enough that even the most capable and quick-thinking of law enforcement agents might not survive his assignment. However, there are tensions in the criminal underworld that do not exist in the public crimefighting network, where everyone involved is shown to be in close alignment. The major advantage the international government men have over the criminals is their shared sense of unity. The government agents stand in solidarity in their opposition to the violation of immigration laws, while the underworld characters demonstrate a minimum of mutual respect and support for one another. Rodriguez and Bearnes represent a dignified sense of responsibility to the greater good of the public, the outlaws they seek are motivated primarily by self-preservation. That is the critical difference between the two groups. In the best example of that distinction, Parkson’s ranch foreman Jeff Amboy (the gravel-voiced Charles McGraw) turns on his employer while the dutiful lawmen assemble to defeat them. The mostly cynical film concludes on an upbeat note with the normalization of the legal Mexican labor needed to perform the farm work that (presumably) most Americans would rather avoid.

The iconography of the Western

Director Anthony Mann and cinematographer John Alton worked efficiently together at Eagle-Lion Films, where they completed three film noirs often referenced by film historians:  T-MEN (1947), RAW DEAL (1948) and HE WALKED BY NIGHT (1948). That estimable track record brought Mann and Alton to MGM for BORDER INCIDENT. The material meshed well with the preferences of Dore Schary, who was head of production at MGM at the time. Schary always favored a project with a modest budget that maintained a healthy social heartbeat. Mann and Alton proved themselves worthy of the assignment, which easily could have degenerated into more standard fare had the project landed in lesser hands. The regional location work, which includes footage captured in agricultural Coachella Valley, adds to the starkness of setting necessary to establish a corrosive film noir climate. The recurrent visual patterns of noir find articulation through the virtuosic skill set of Alton, an absolute master of light and shadow. Oppressive noir stylistic choices accent the fragility of the illegal human smuggling operation, which is under intense pressure from multiple governments. Insistently low camera angles intensify the pressure on everyone involved. Sequences that feature government men in an office environment are filmed in an inexpressive manner, but that changes exponentially when the filmmakers depict field operations. In terms of blocking, actors are placed strategically to stress one person's superiority over another. The Mann/Alton team should be credited for injecting the production with a heavy dose of suspenseful action sequences and intense moments:  Bearnes tortured by Hugo Wolfgang Ulrich (Sig Ruman) and his cronies, a risky water tower climb, a well-crafted car / motorcycle chase, a truck heist, a shootout in a ravine that features a deadly quicksand pit (perhaps the ideal film noir death trap) and above all else a ghastly harrow tractor murder. Amboy's grisly killing of a helpless man stands as one of the most excruciating murders ever committed to celluloid. Another frequent collaborator with Mann, screenwriter John C. Higgins had writing credits for four other titles directed by Mann:  RAILROADED! (1947), T-MEN, RAW DEAL and HE WALKED BY NIGHT. For BORDER INCIDENT, Higgins worked from a story by George Zuckerman. His screenplay never portrays the migrants as an invasive menace; the only villains are those who take advantage of them for cheap labor. A low-budget production, BORDER INCIDENT earned $580,000 in US and Canadian box office receipts plus an additional $328,000 in international earnings. Ultimately the film lost $194,000 for MGM.

Harrowing:  the barbaric murder of Bearnes

The dual-layered Blu-ray version of BORDER INCIDENT available as part of the Warner Archive Collection is framed at 1.37:1 and looks well-preserved in motion. Compared to the 1.33:1 DVD that Warner issued in 2006, the HD scan yields a noticeable improvement over its DVD counterpart, which looks dark and much less defined in comparison. In terms of content within the frame, the Blu-ray version offers more information on the left, slightly less on the right, a little more at the top and somewhat less at the bottom:

Warner DVD

Warner Blu-ray

Ported from the 2006 DVD edition is the illuminating audio commentary track anchored by film historian Dana Polan, Professor of Cinema Studies at NYU Tisch School of the Arts. Polan advances the position that BORDER INCIDENT is not a pure film noir, but rather a crime exposé with noir elements. Fair enough, the film's incorruptible lawmen are not the sort of flawed individuals vulnerable to seduction and other temptations characteristic of the noir protagonists of the 1940s. He also attaches the film's plot mechanics to human truths that emerged during World War II, and he discusses the migrant's journey as a mythological test fraught with danger. In relation to the police procedure element that forms the narrative's structure, the criminal element has modernized, adapted to technology and thus become more difficult to combat than ever before. A recurring theme that runs through the narrative involves the playing of games like chess, checkers and cards, which collectively form an analogous bridge to the cop/criminal dynamic. An especially bleak film to be distributed by MGM, a studio best known for family-friendly, lighthearted products such as THE PHILADELPHIA STORY (1940), MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS (1944) and ADAM’S RIB (1949), BORDER INCIDENT defies accepted Hollywood conventions of its time and challenges viewer assumptions, even today, especially when the honorable man Bearnes is callously eliminated. Unfortunately, sometimes crude Mexican stereotypes are employed, as when the two Mexican smugglers Cuchillo (Alfonso Bedoya) and Zopilote (Arnold Moss) enter Parkson's modern home and are baffled by its modern amenities. Though the Mexican migrants are granted a certain sense of dignity, they also come equipped with naivety that requires the guidance of more worldly government reps like Rodriguez. That Rodriguez is rescued from certain death by the bracero Juan Garcia (James Mitchell) says a lot about the public's need for dutiful public servants.

A theatrical trailer (2m 24s) is the only other supplement.