dallesmac
"Borderline" was a big disappointment, given the expectations I had from the MacMurray-Trevor star duo. They played their roles gamely in this awkwardly scripted, boringly directed melodrama (with light comedy overtones). If you forget about the tedious, poorly motivated plot line, there are a few enjoyably light and playful scenes between the two stars (both of whom look great, especially Trevor). They have good chemistry, and the inevitable romance that interferes with their respective drug enforcement chores (only because each believes the other is a criminal), works, despite the lazy script development. The romance works so well, in fact, that the plot demand that MacMurray turn Trevor in seems pretty unbelievable.On a minor level, "Borderline" is interesting for its mid-20th century Hollywood depiction of Mexico and Mexicans. Lots of stereotyping, primarily for questionable comic effect. I disagree with IMDb's characterization of speaking "Mexican" as a goof. It struck me as intentional. That's the way some people talked then (and the way some people still do).
classicsoncall
Hold on, let me get this straight - Maddy Haley/Gladys Larue (Claire Trevor) goes undercover as a drug agent, gets mistaken for a crime lord's moll, shoots the bad guy (Raymond Burr), gets kidnapped by another undercover cop (Fred MacMurray) posing as a drug dealer, and winds up with said cop in a sleazy Mexican hotel room! Not knowing each other's true identity, why didn't Haley just beat it the first chance she got? It didn't make any sense to me. Oh yeah, and later on, she still had her gun! Huh? Well I guess you just weren't supposed to think about stories like this too much. This one started out like it could have been a noir style crime drama, but veered into questionable comedic territory before dissolving into something that didn't quite work on either level. Probably the goofiest part of the story occurred early when Trevor's character tried to catch Pete Ritchie's (Burr) eye and he wasn't going for it. Wouldn't you say she was a bit over the top in trying to get his attention? Wouldn't it make YOU suspicious?Anyway, all is not lost. If you take your thinking cap off this doesn't have to be so bad. I thought the switcheroo involving the dead Mexican driver Miguel and a local town drunk was a hoot. It seemed a little callous of MacMurray's character, but by that time he probably figured he couldn't fight the script and just went with it. Too bad the chemistry with Trevor didn't really click because this could have been a little bit better than it turned out. In fact, just like the plane in the middle of the story, this one wound up simply running out of gas.
writers_reign
This is the kind of movie fading Hollywood stars used to come to England to make in the fifties and dire as they mostly were those British movies were light years ahead of this piece of cheese. All hands - director Seiter, writer Freeman and cast Trevor, MacMurray and Burr - had done much better stuff and all must have been equally desperate for any gig at all to take this on. To call it rickety is like calling the bridge at San Luis Rey a solid construction: The first ten minutes are squandered setting up Claire Trevor as an undercover Fed which is then negated by having Fred MacMurray appear out of left field with no back story and coming on like a hood. Everyone concerned seems to be playing in a different movie and chemistry between Trevor and MacMurray is minimal to non-existent. This should have gone straight to video - in Pluto.
MartinHafer
This is a perfectly adequate movie with perfectly adequate performances and while there's nothing bad about this film, there certainly isn't anything that good that stands out either. This film sort of like a "Film Noir-LITE", in that it has some of the outward signs of a Noir film (such as gangsters, villains and violence) but is far from a good example of the genre (mediocre camera-work and rather listless dialog compared to "true" Noir). And, despite starring Fred MacMurray and Claire Trevor, I really had to struggle to keep watching the film because nothing peaked my interest. Plus, even though the film co-starred Raymond Burr (one of the greatest Noir actors of all-time--especially in RAW DEAL), he wasn't given that much screen time (his removal from the plot was way too easy and anti-climactic) and his usual sadism was absent. In many ways, I consider this film to be like eating meatloaf--it's pretty ordinary, inoffensive and nothing to get excited over. Gimme a "steak" anytime over meatloaf!
AD
