Joel McCrea and Yvonne De Carlo find Tensions at the U.S./Mexican Border
DIRECTED BY GEORGE SHERMAN/1954
BLU-RAY STREET DATE: MARCH 28, 2023/KL STUDIO CLASSICS
Ol’ Joel McCrea is back on the trail in director George Sherman’s vibrant 1954 Western Border River. McCrea plays Clete Mattson, a solitary traveler who pledges no allegiance to either flag in this time of America’s ongoing Civil War, preferring to claim “the winner” as his side. Beneath his assured loner veneer, however, Mattson is revealed to be fiercely loyal to one side. That side, we learn, is the South.
Mattson is walking a delicate line, having already crossed the U.S. border to do so. The titular river of Border River separates the not-so-United States and Zona Libre, which means “Free Zone”, a free trade zone in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas. This is where Mattson operates as he maneuvers his secret plan to exchange bricks of gold via the Mexicans in order to help arm the Confederacy. His efforts, however, are not without difficulties. (What kind of movie would it be if they weren’t?) Mattson runs into plenty of trouble along the border, as one is prone to doing. Among them: red tape, fractured loyalties, much gunplay, and a surprising amount of deadly quicksand.
McCrea is quite the anchoring presence here under the direction of competent Western helmer George Sherman. Yet, it’s Yvonne De Carlo, playing his independently spirited headstrong love interest, that enlivens Border River. If McCrea is the anchor, she is the wavy water that keeps things interesting.
Not that such metaphors are necessarily apt for a review of a movie like this one. Border River simply flows straightforward; a successfully crafted programmer replete with lively supporting performances by Pedro Armendáriz, Howard Petrie, and Alfonso Bedoya as an always-in-the-way varmint with the kind of boisterous wild-eyed bandito energy that ¡Three Anigos! bit into so hard. And that’s about it.
KL Studio Classics’ Blu-ray of Border River contains, as it’s only non-trailer extra, an audio commentary track by film historian Toby Roan. Roan’s affable but direct approach to commentaries is well matched to this title, as George Sherman sure isn’t screwing around with a bunch of flourishes. Roan provides biographical details on the cast members as well as info on the production itself. While there’s no indication of any kind of improved transfer information, the movie itself does look and sound really good. It is a Technicolor film in 1:1.37 aspect ratio, both of which are well represented here.
Of course, there is that prickly matter of staunch Confederate loyalty being at the core of our hero’s motivations…. The Civil War itself is merely discussed and never seen, though it is the powder keg at the center of everything. It’s fascinating, and not in a good way, that Border River rode audiences’ way smack in the middle of the 1950s, the decade that saw some of the most active reigniting of Confederate veneration in the twentieth century.
The Confederacy is correctly called out as a lost cause to Mattson’s face at one point, but he absolutely doesn’t want to hear it. He’s that kind of inherently respectable “man with a code”… the kind that drive Westerns but also the kind who violently double down when confronted with hard truths. Cut to today, white supremacy is still funneling ammunition (certainly of the metaphorical variety) against democracy proper through Mexico and exploiting border trauma to do it. None of which makes Border River a movie to rinse away. Quite the opposite, in fact. Kudos to KL Studio Classics for preserving it on a Blu-ray. Watch it, collect it, and enjoy what’s worth enjoying about it. Just don’t get too caught up in its current… or its quicksand.
The images in this review are merely used to represent the movie itself, and absolutely do not reflect the image quality of the Blu-ray in question.