Written by / 3/04/2022 / No comments / , , , , , , , ,

PAUL MUNI & BETTE DAVIS IN THE PRE-NOIR OF 'BORDERTOWN'

Title: BORDERTOWN Year: 1935 Rating: ***

The early Noir THEY DRIVE BY NIGHT starring George Raft and Humphrey Bogart was a remake of the earlier Noir BORDERTOWN starring SCARFACE actor and Gangster-genre pioneer Paul Muni, starting out as a poor lawyer so overly-idealistic he's bound to fail in business, and love...

Herein classy-rich, out-of-his league Margaret Lindsay is the roundabout reason Muni's forced to retire his law practice and, like I AM A FUGITIVE OF A CHAIN-GANG, he wanders montage-style by foot, winding up where most of the programmer's action takes place...

Drawing of Paul Muni in court from BORDERTOWN

Once Muni goes from failed lawyer to a climbing, ambitious sidekick turned business partner in a seedy Mexican nightclub, the film's crime aspect tries desperately to grow, curbed by Bette Davis who... playing the pathetic-dame role that'd make Ida Lupino famous in the remake... is the club owner's loopy trophy wife, falling harder for Muni then he'd fallen for Lindsay, and that's where the Norish murder-twist both begins and ends...

Turning Muni into the kind of Wrong Man without hope: a shame since both the audience and his character is never able to fully revel in the kind of seedy gangster-style antics that'd turned this honest loser into a crooked winner and, while Noir's first golden rule is that Crime Doesn't Pay, in BORDERTOWN it never has a proper chance to amount to much of anything beyond a predictable morality tale.

Margaret Lindsay in BORDERTOWN
Bette Davis in BORDERTOWN


Share This Post :
Tags : , , , , , , , ,

No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.

All Time Popular

Featured Post

ORSON WELLES PUTS ANTHONY PERKINS THROUGH 'THE TRIAL'

Anthony Perkins in Orson Welles's THE TRIAL Year: 1962 Rating: ***1/2 Before his final William Shakespeare adaptation CHIMES AT MIDNIGHT...

WWW.CULTFILMFREAKS.COM

WWW.CULTFILMFREAKS.COM
Movie Reviews, Interviews, Articles and Pop Culture from White Heat to Blue City

RIP ACTOR KEN HUTCHISON

TOTAL HITS

Popular Trending

FOUNDED BY JAMES M. TATE

FOUNDED BY JAMES M. TATE
RANDOM QUOTE: "This is good, and, that's life." John Slattery as Roger on Mad Men

FILM NOIR & NEO NOIR CRIME

FAVORITES SHORTLIST

1)OTLEY 2)HELL IS A CITY 3)ROBBERY 4)THE FEARMAKERS 5)CANYON PASSAGE 6)VIOLENT SATURDAY 7)HOT CARS 8)JUNGLE STREET 9)ANATOMY OF A MURDER 10)THE CROWDED SKY 11))THE MAN FROM LARAMIE 12)SHARKS' TREASURE 13)SWEENEY TWO 14)RAIDERS FROM BENEATH THE SEA 15)HARDCORE 16)THE SYSTEM 17)WHITE HEAT 18)AL CAPONE 19)HIDDEN FEAR 20)FALLEN ANGEL 21)NIGHT CREATURES 22)CURSE OF THE DEMON 23)ASH WEDNESDAY 24)THE BREAK 25)AIR PATROL 26)HANNIBAL BROOKS 27)EASY LIVING 28)WILLIAM CONRAD'S BRAINSTORM 29)FRENZY 30)THE ROARING TWENTIES 1)DANA ANDREWS 2)JAMES CAGNEY 3)STANLEY BAKER 4)MARLON BRANDO 5)JACK NICHOLSON 1)VIRGINIA MAYO 2)SUE LYON 3)GENE TIERNEY 4)MERRY ANDERS 5)FAYE DUNAWAY DIRECTORS 1)JACQUES TOURNEUR 2)RICHARD FLEISCHER 3)STANLEY KUBRICK 4)ORSON WELLES 5)OTTO PREMINGER 6)JOHN LANDIS 7)JOHN GUILLERMAN 8)VAL GUEST 9)JOHN CARPENTER 10)MICHAEL WINNER

BRITISH NEW WAVE CINEMA

RARITIES AND EXPLOITATION

HAMMER HORROR & THRILLER

Popular This Month

CHARLES BRONSON CINEMA

CINEMA OF DANA ANDREWS

WESTERN GENRE REVIEWS

PEAKING INTO THE SIXTIES

KICKING IN THE EIGHTIES

TALES AND REFLECTIONS

REVVING THE SEVENTIES

FOR HORROR MOVIE REVIEWS

Most Popular Last Year

RETURN TO THE HOMEPAGE