Complete credited cast: | |||
Fred MacMurray | ... | Johnny McEvoy - aka Johnny Macklin | |
Claire Trevor | ... | Madeleine Haley | |
Raymond Burr | ... | Pete Ritchie | |
José Torvay | ... | Miguel (as Jose Torvay) | |
Morris Ankrum | ... | Bill Whittaker | |
Roy Roberts | ... | Harvey Gumbin | |
Don Diamond | ... | Deusik | |
Nacho Galindo | ... | Porfirio | |
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Pepe Hern | ... | Pablo |
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Grazia Narciso | ... | Porfirio's Wife |
Customs agents are looking for information about Pete Ritchie, who is involved in smuggling drugs into the US. Police officer Madeleine Haley goes undercover in order to gain Ritchie's confidence, and before long she meets him through one of his associates. As she is talking with Ritchie, Johnny Macklin and one of his men burst in, and they provoke a violent confrontation. From then on, Haley is in constant danger as she attempts to figure out everything that is happening in the smuggling operation. Written by Snow Leopard
After a good start, this crime drama gets bogged down from time to time, and ends up being just average, or perhaps slightly above average. Besides the interesting story setup, it features a good core cast, with Claire Trevor getting a good role that allows her to play a variety of material, Raymond Burr well-cast as a brutish villain, and Fred MacMurray.
The story starts with Trevor as a police officer working undercover in Mexico. Her initial dealings with Burr and MacMurray set up some interesting possibilities, and create some suspense from the start. The rest of the story is not really bad, but it too often allows the pace to stagnate, and it does not make the best use of some of the possibilities. Aside from a couple of good scenes, it plays out in a more routine fashion.
"Borderline" is still worth seeing for fans of the genre. Besides the main story, it has some occasional comic touches that come across all right. If it ends up seeming like a bit of a disappointment, it is simply because it showed signs of becoming something better than it turned out to be.