Border Incident


Border Incident is a 1949 American film noir featuring Ricardo Montalbán, George Murphy, and Howard Da Silva. Directed by Anthony Mann, the MGM production was written by John C. Higgins from a story by John C. Higgins and George Zuckerman. The film was shot by cinematographer John Alton, who used shadows and lighting effects to involve an audience despite the fact that the film was shot on a low budget.

Plot

Two agents, one Mexican and one American, are tasked to stop the smuggling of Mexican migrant workers across the border to California. The two agents go undercover, one as a poor migrant.

Cast

The film was among a number of lower budgeted movies produced at MGM under the regime of Dore Schary.
According to Mann, "Metro said: ‘Make whatever picture you want.' John and I had thought of doing Border Incident, because the guys there were also involved with the
Federal agents and T Men. Through the research we had made with T Men we found the fantastic story of the Border Incident boys. We made it on location, but it was really not Metro’s cup of tea. When it came out, they were flabbergasted. It wasn’t anything they thought a motion picture should be!"

Reception

According to MGM records the film earned $580,000 in the US and Canada and $328,000 overseas resulting in a loss of $194,000.

Critical response

Roger Westcombe compared the film to classic Westerns: "Yet far from a typical Western's sense of freedom, Border Incident shares with T-Men that film's inky, submerged visual quality. These are 'wide' but not 'open' spaces, as Alton's beautifully registered grey-toned but grim visuals make the distant horizons as closed as the American border. The constant presence of vulnerable, innocent peasants adds a piquancy to Border Incident, raising the stakes from the destiny of a mere two police agents to that of an entire underclass."