Mystery Street - This is a bona fide trailblazer on several fronts. First off is the lead character being Hispanic and secondly he isn't playing a gigolo or a bullfighter. In this case it's Peter Morales (Ricardo Montalban), a Detective Lieutenant with the Massachusetts State Police. The movie does cheat a little by making him Portuguese, which I suppose was to make it more palatable to movie goers in 1950. The other innovative plot component is the integration of Forensic science decades before it became such a wildly popular piece of pop culture.
Morales is assigned the case when skeletal remains are discovered on a beach. In a prologue the remains are shown to be Vivian Heldon, a bar girl who had ended up pregnant by her married lover and was attempting to blackmail him. In order to confront her lover in person she ends up stealing the car of Henry Shanway (Marshall Thompson), a guy she picks up at her place of work. She is then promptly shot and killed by her unidentified paramour. Shanway lies and reports it had been stolen from in front of the hospital where his wife had just suffered a miscarriage. The police quickly turn their attention towards him as a person of interest.
Morales consults with forensics specialist Dr. McAdoo (Bruce Bennett) at Harvard Medical School to try and find out as much as possible about the bones. McAdoo proves to be invaluable and soon determines the gender, approximate age and the victims expectant condition. In the meantime the dead woman's avaricious landlady, Mrs. Smerrling (Elsa Lanchester) has withheld valuable information from the police regarding the identity of the wealthy and married killer in order to try and cash in.
This was very much a police procedural with each step of the investigation laid out methodically. McAdoo's insights into the case might be considered commonplace these days but in 1950 this was cutting edge stuff. It all adds up to a fascinating noir mystery with a superlative cast and a charismatic and self-possessed protagonist in Montalban's Pete Morales.
90/100
Border Incident - 1949 crime drama directed by Anthony Mann who would go on to helm five exemplary westerns starring Jimmy Stewart. This one again stars Ricardo Montalban as Mexican federal agent Pablo Rodriguez. He is teamed up with his American counterpart Jack Bearnes (George Murphy) in an effort to halt the smuggling of migrant workers across the border into California. The workers are being preyed upon by a vicious gang that not only helps them cross the border but also ambushes them on their way back into Mexico flush with cash from their labors. The fact that they're also being exploited by their American employers is glossed over for the most part but this was 1949 after all. Rodriguez volunteers to go undercover as one of the field workers while Bearnes tries to infiltrate the gang as a small time crook looking to sell stolen immigration cards.
Bad guys are an essential part of any story and this has quite a collection of memorable villains. Howard Da Silva plays Owen Parkson, an intermediary between the smugglers and the contractors in the states. He poses as a legitimate rancher and both Rodriguez and Bearnes end up as his unwilling guests. His henchman are played by recognizable character actors, Charles McGraw, John Ridgeley and Arthur Hunnicutt. The gang of smugglers are also well known for playing heavies including Sig Ruman, Arnold Moss and Alfonso Bedoya.
Mann does a good job of setting the right tone with his use of lighting and shadows. He also captures the sense of urgency and life and death struggle the two agents find themselves in. There's a startling and major plot twist that really drives home the high stakes involved with a dynamic wrap up to the film. I really liked this and both of these films make for a great Ricardo Montalban double feature.
85/100
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I've heard it's one of the best films of its decade. I'll be watching it next week and I'm ready to be blown away!
