BORDERLINE

US, 1950, 88 minutes, Black and white.
Fred Mac Murray, Claire Trevor, Raymond Burr, Morris Ankrum.
Directed by William A. Seiter.

Borderline is a routine thriller from Universal Studios in 1950. By this stage of his career, Fred Mac Murray was playing a range of characters including police as well as comedy characters. Claire Trevor had just won an Oscar for her role in Key Largo. Raymond Burr was playing literal heavies in many films of the period.

The film was directed by William A. Seiter who had a long career from the silent film days, directing mainly genre films. He then moved to television.

This is a familiar story of drug agents as well as drug smuggling. It is interesting to look at 1950 and realise that drug smuggling was prevalent at that time (not something from more recent decades as the movies show). This was especially true of drug dealers, syndicate rings on the border between California and Mexico.

However, while the film is a drama, deadly at times, there is more than a trace of the screwball comedies and memories of It Happened One Night and the battle of the sexes. Claire Trevor plays an agent who goes undercover in Mexico and is mistaken by Fred Mac Murray as a dancer and the mistress of main drug dealer, Raymond Burr. However, into the film, it is revealed that Mac Murray is an undercover agent. Each then is planning to arrest the other. There is quite a humorous scene of recognition before the final drug bust and arrests.

1.A B-film of the 1950s? A genre film? The conventions of the thrillers about investigators and drug dealing?

2.The black and white photography, California, Mexico, the border? Authentic? Musical score? Club songs?

3.The reality of drug dealing and smuggling in 1950? Compared with later decades?

4.The introduction to Madeleine, her work, Bill Whittaker and his reluctance to employ her? Her strength of character and strength of mind? Going to Mexico, finding Pete Ritchie, becoming a chorus girl, coming on to Ritchie, to his assistant, in the room? Ritchie and his attachment to her? Deciding that she should be a drug runner? The confrontation with Johnny Mc Evoy? Thinking that he was a dealer? His tough attitudes, hitting her? Her travelling with him, as husband and wife, the documents? The hotel? Their having to escape because of Ritchie’s pursuit? The credibility of their falling in love? Her plan to arrest Mc Evoy?

5.Mc Evoy, seemingly a drug dealer, his dealings with Gumbin? The attacks on Ritchie? Taking the drugs, suspicious of Madeleine, thinking that she was Gladys LaRue? Taking her with him? Setting her up for the fall? Their travels, escapes, dinner, the kisses? The credibility of his romance? The reality of his being an agent, his contacts, the phone call? The plan for the border?

6.Ritchie, tough, the attraction to Gladys? His underlings? The shootouts? The pursuit, his arrest?

7.Miguel, his family, the ride to the airport? The human and comic touches?

8.The airport, the car breaking down, the pretence with the police, their dead friend, leaving him in the gutter, taking the alcoholic? The word out for their arrest? The airport, the flight, coming down on the beach? The touches of the screwball comedy?

9.At the border, each wanting the other to be arrested? Mc Evoy and his disbelief?

10.The final showdown, Gumbin and his group, Mc Evoy going into the house, still undercover, the money? The shootout and the solution of the problem?