Border Incident

Plot

"Here is the All-American Canal. It runs through the desert for miles along the California-Mexico border... Farming in Imperial Valley... [requires] a vast army of farm workers... and this army of workers comes from our neighbor to the south, from Mexico. ... It is this problem of human suffering and injustice about which you should know. The following composite case is based upon factual information supplied by the Immigration and Naturalization Service..."

The story concerns two agents, one Mexican (PJF) and one American, who are tasked to stop the smuggling of Mexican migrant workers across the border to California. The two agents go undercover, one as a poor migrant.

Some of the film's most memorable scenes include the death of an American by a mechanized harrow and a climactic shootout in a quicksand swamp.

Cast

Production

The film was among a number of lower budgeted movies produced at MGM under the regime of Dore Schary.

Reception

According to MGM records the film earned $580,000 in the US and Canada and $328,000 overseas resulting in a loss of $194,000.

Critical response

Roger Westcombe compared the film to classic Westerns: "Yet far from a typical Western's sense of freedom, Border Incident shares with [director Mann's previous film noir] T-Men that film's inky, submerged visual quality. These are 'wide' but not 'open' spaces, as Alton's beautifully registered grey-toned but grim visuals make the distant horizons as closed as the American border. The constant presence of vulnerable, innocent peasants adds a piquancy to Border Incident, raising the stakes from the destiny of a mere two police agents to that of an entire underclass."