ACROSS THE BRIDGE (1957)

Long before advancing to faceless family entertainments like THOSE MAGNIFICENT MEN IN THEIR FLYING MACHINES/’65, Ken Annakin was a faceless journeyman director offering British competence in the absence of any stylistic fingerprints.  A professionalism that well serves this adaptation of Graham Greene’s short story about a reckless embezzling bank exec racing to safety and cash reserves across the border in Mexico.  Rod Steiger (with Wallace Berry’s German accent from GRAND HOTEL) as the man on the run makes a hard sell of both character & plot in the early goings.  (Annakin not much help reining him in.)  But Greene comes to the rescue with two great plot twists that not only pull the rug out, but reset tone to Fatalistic Irony.  Suddenly, everything starts working.  Twist #1: Steiger steals the identity of a fellow traveler, unaware the man’s Wanted for Murder in Mexico.  Twist #2: Steiger winds up stuck with ‘Dolores,’ the man’s fiercely loyal dog.  The rest of the film plays as conundrum, with Steiger stuck in small Mexican town holding one too many passports.  Reason enough to take them both, effectively stranding him.  Mexican Purgatory courtesy of local Chief of Police Noel Willman, who steals every scene not taken by Dolores.  Bernard Lee (M in the early James Bond films) also shows up as a Scotland Yard man hoping to trick Steiger back to Stateside territory and make an arrest.  Plus, a young Texas couple trying to get a reward on the killer Steiger is only pretending to be; the widow of same; and an entire town against Steiger for the death of a killer who was something of a local hero.  (How did Greene get so much plot in a short story!)  Cleverly shot in England & Spain, so technically a Brit Noir, with book author as film auteur.