Border Incident, 3 stars

Let me make one thing clear: this is a two-star film with a four-star premise, particularly for the time. Plotwise it is a typical film noir: g-men infiltrate an illegal operation and one of them gets put in mortal danger in the process. The difference is that this time the illegal operation is the smuggling of immigrants across the US-Mexico border. A plot that addressed this issue at all would have been quite progressive for the time. Yes, there are stereotypes of Mexicans, including sombreros and banditry, but the main characters are fleshed out and the plot does not shrink from showing the human toll of the operation.

Anthony Mann apparently directed this film in his sleep, save for a few striking nighttime sequences such as a harrowing scene where a man is chased relentlessly by an approaching combine. Ricardo Montalban is excellent in an early role that gives him little to do; he makes the most of it. The other performances are undistinguished, but this is definitely a B-movie with an edge that elevates it above other stock entertainments of the time.

On Dangerous Ground, 3 stars

It's always refreshing to see the marvelously formulaic film noir genre try a few new tricks. By now we all know the hallmarks: urban setting, femmes fatales, expressionistic lighting, world-weary protagonist, etc. Here is a film, directed by the masterful Nicholas Ray, that tries a few refreshing twists on the old formulas.

At first it seems as though we are in for the same old, same old. Robert Ryan plays a cynical, washed-up cop with no hope or ethics left. He works the dirty city streets and has let them soil his soul. But just when we think we know where this is going, the story opens up. Ryan is assigned to a case in the country in the winter, and suddenly the film noir has gone blanc, with a setting of a countryside full of snow and a bucolic mountain cabin. Ida Lupino is no femme fatale, either; instead she is a gentle blind woman who is trying to protect her murderous but uncomprehending brother. And instead of seducing or destroying Ryan, she sets out to open his heart and make him forget the cynicism he embraced in the city.

Openness is a theme that resounds through "On Dangerous Ground". While its script and performances are fine if not outstanding, it deserves credit for attempting to toy with some very familiar conventions. The ideas of taking the police chase off the city streets and setting it in a snow-covered field or making the lone female a character of sympathy instead of disdain show a willingness to experiment with form that was all too infrequently attempted by noir directors. Ray, of course, would go on to prove himself a master at transcending genre, and "On Dangerous Ground" shows this tendency of his just beginning to take form.

The Racket, 3 stars

Now here is the perfect definition of a formulaic film noir. The formula goes something like this:

((Robert Mitchum + Robert Ryan) x (gangsters + cops)) + shadows + women= "The Racket".

A perfectly serviceable film, but for excitement or technique it's best to look elsewhere.

His Kind of Woman, 3.5 stars

Had I not had any expectations of this movie going in, it's likely I would have found it a four-star film. However, the sleeve brags of a "film noir with periodic incursions from the Monty Python crew", which set me up to expect a crazier, much more haphazard film than the one that I actually saw.

The casting is perfect and enjoyable as Robert Mitchum, a gambler who has been offered five figures to lie low in a Mexican resort for reasons unknown to him, arrives at the resort and promptly encounters Jane Russell. Kids, if something is too good to be true it is never what it seems. Being paid 10,000 to lounge in the sun and oil up Jane Russell is not something that happens to your average Joe. It turns out the gangsters who offered Mitchum the money are planning to kill him and steal his identity so they can smuggle their boss into the country.

This is boilerplate stuff, you say. Where does Monty Python come in? Well, the closest thing to a Python comes in the form of Vincent Price, playing a gun-crazy vacationing American actor. It is impossible to tell how this character was written because Price's performance is so over-the-top; he cries at his own films and spouts Shakespeare as if it is appropriate everyday conversation. It is also impossible to pay attention to anyone or anything else (even Jane Russell's "things") when he is in the frame. He completely steals this movie from Mitchum, who always tends toward the laconic, and Russell, whose thespian abilities were never the whole reason she was given roles. While it's true that the film has a zanier sensibility than most films noirs, this is not a particularly high achievement. The serious, fatalistic tone of crime films of this era has been replaced by an airy Mexican setting (still with its share of venetian blinds through which light can fall) and witty banter without the deadly double entendres of an average film noir. Those attributes add a star to what is otherwise an average and predictable plot, but they aren't enough to raise it to a four-star, Monty Python-level rating.