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Bordertown

1935, Movie, NR, 80 mins

Bordertown: Review

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That master of characterizations, Muni, is this time a swarthy Mexican lawyer whose lack of courtroom decorum and procedure, coupled with a volatile nature, gets him disbarred during his first case. He becomes a bouncer in a bordertown nightclub owned by Pallette. Davis is the portly owner's wife who immediately begins to make a play for Muni, but he rebuffs her, pursuing Lindsay, a cultured woman from high society who loves slumming in the bordertown dives. (Lindsay calls the darkly-made-up Muni "Savage.") In desperation, Davis thinks to free herself of Pallette so the discriminating Muni (he won't dally with a married woman) will feel proper in wooing her. Davis gets Pallette drunk, then leaves him sleeping it off in his car while locking the garage door so that carbon monoxide gas kills him. She then goes to Muni and tells him that she has murdered to be with him. Now he really doesn't want anything to do with her. Half crazy, Davis goes to the police and says that she and Muni killed Pallette. They are arrested and tried. Davis becomes hysterical on the witness stand, her overwhelming guilt causing her to babble incoherently (it's one of Davis' most histrionic scenes). The court concludes that, while she's unbalanced, she alone is guilty of the killing. Muni is released, inheriting the casino. When Lindsay drops by, he forces himself on her, but she rejects him, running into the street, hopping into her roadster, and driving away at breakneck speed, crashing her car and killing herself. Thoroughly disillusioned, Muni sells the casino and gives the money to a school for underprivileged slum children as he had once been of their number. Other than the forced ending and Lindsay's absurd death, BORDERTOWN packs a stinging punch, chiefly because of Muni's frantic portrayal and Davis' extraordinary theatrics. (Muni lived with his Mexican chauffeur for weeks to perfect his speech patterns and gestures; Davis, of course, studied Davis.) The film was remade (at least in using the murder technique and motive) as THEY DRIVE BY NIGHT and BLOWING WILD. Gaudio's excellent photography greatly aided this improbable film. leave a comment
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