Sarita Rafferty
There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.
Helio
Near the beginning of the film there is a god awful scene of six Lucille Balls dancing out of sync shrilly singing "La la la, La la la" in high pitched voices reminiscent of a Three Stooges background music. If you can get past that the rest of the movie will seem brilliant. You might want to consider fast forwarding through that or turning off the sound. I can't get that shrill "singing" out of my head.I liked it that they didn't have subtitles for the Spanish used in the movie. I didn't always catch what was said but it made it more interesting.
a_chinn
The cast (Fred MacMurray, Claire Trevor, and Raymond Burr) and thumbnail story description of two undercover agents infiltrating a drug ring in Mexico had me excited about this film noir, but it ended up being a rather bland nourish adventure film. It's along the lines of "Out of the Past" or "The Big Steal" but nowhere as good. MacMurray and Trevor are both trying to bust Burr's drug smuggling ring, but neither knows that the other is an undercover agent. The cast makes the film watchable, but the story had more possibilities than what ended up on screen. A decent cast and set- up are squandered. Disappointing, but watchable.
Man99204
No actress played "Cheap Broad" better than Claire Trevor. She is the high point in this film. In this film she is a high class dame pretending to be a "cheap Broad", and she manages to do with with little to no help from the script. Fred MacMurray plays a character who is both a romantic lead, and an apparent bad guy. His character is radically different from the character he played on "my Three Sons".Raymond Burr plays a very convincing villain. His character is also very different from the character he played on "Perry Mason".The weak point in this film is "Mexico", or at least Hollywood's concept of Mexico in 1950. The location shots are actually filmed in the Greater Los Angeles area - in areas which look nothing at all like Baja California.This film also is very contrary in its portrayal of Latino characters - especially Latinas. Many of the characters are not people but rather cartoon-ish characters.
Terrell-4
Well, we have ballet noir (The Car Man (Matthew Bourne)), family values noir (Home Sweet Homicide), even "Oh, come on, that's not noir" noir (The Third Man - Criterion Collection (2- Disc Edition)). Why not easy-going romantic comedy noir? Borderline, with Claire Trevor and Fred MacMurray, fills a noir niche no one seems to have noticed was empty. And not badly, either. Pete Ritchie (Raymond Burr) is a shrewd, ruthless drug dealer. The Feds want him, but Ritchie can spot a Fed agent at ten yards. He's holed up in a dusty Mexican town where he sends drug shipments into the States using innocent tourists as well as paid mules. Ritchie's smart but he's a sucker for dames. That's where Madeleine Haley (Claire Trevor) comes in. She's an L.A. cop and, as she points out to the Feds, a female. In short order, Gladys LaRue arrives in this Mexican town and gets a job singing and dancing (badly) in a sleazy cantina that Ritchie, in a white suit, frequents. Just when she starts making progress with Ritchie in his room, Johnny Macklin, a tough guy for hire, bursts in with a gun in his hand and a plan in his head. He's been hired by another gangster to hijack one of Ritchie's drug shipments. Wait a minute...isn't that Fred MacMurray? Then we realize -- this is no spoiler -- that there are two U.S. agents working to bag Ritchie, and neither knows about the other. It's not long before the two of them are on the road headed for the U. S, staying overnight -- coyly, of course -- in a sleazy hotel. They're toting the drug shipment Ritchie's gangster competitor assigned them, as well as a suspicious music box, a fruitcake and a parrot in a big cage. Soon there's cold cream on Gladys' face and everything from a container for fingerprint power to a camera in Macklin's coat pockets. When one goes to the lobby, the other whips out a camera to take secret photos. When one goes down the hall for a bath, the other...whips out a camera to take secret photos. And then Ritchie and his goons show up and a dangerous race, complete with cheery Mexican music and wise cracks, gets underway. Corpses are left in the dust with a tip of the sombrero to siesta time. Robert Mitchum and Jane Greer never had something like this to deal with. There may be guns and gunzels, as well as too much noir drama at the end, but Borderline quickly becomes an easy-going romantic chase comedy with drugs, death and Raymond Burr thrown in. Most importantly, the movie has two attractive leads. Listening to Trevor and MacMurray, still unaware of who they really are, trade stories about how they got started in the crime business does credit to their ability to keep straight faces. Borderline is a pleasant movie, even if at times it's not sure just what kind of noir it is. It may not be an A production but it's considerably better than a programmer. As much as MacMurray and Trevor work well together, Claire Trevor steals the show.
