John Chard
Feb 17, 2014
He's got one friend left. Across the Bridge is directed by Ken Annakin and adapted to screenplay by Guy Elmes and Dennis Freeman for a Graham Greene story. It stars Rod Steiger, David Knight, Marla Landi, Noel Willman, Bernard Lee and Eric Pohlmann. Music is by James Bernard and cinematography by Reginald Wyer. High powered business man Carl Schaffner (Steiger) is crooked and the net is finally closing in on him. Fleeing to Mexico he initiates a sequence of events that finds him taking on the identity of another man. If he thought this was going to be his way out of a jam? He has no idea... The implosion of a morally corrupt shyster drives this excellent and under seen Brit noir production. Fronted by Steiger turning in one of his greatest performances, he himself called it the second best work he ever did after The Pawnbroker, pic unfolds slowly but grips like a vice until the final third thrusts Schaffner into a world of desperation and solitude. A world inhabited by people not beyond fracturing laws and regulations themselves, and where it dawns on him that the vagaries of fate has stared him in the eyes and laughed at him. Annakin, himself proclaiming this to be up with his best work, creates a grubby and sweaty Mexican border town to act as the backdrop to Schaffner's mental decay, and with Bernard's ferociously aware musical score pounding on Schaffner's shoulders, atmosphere is set at the high end of Bleakville. Dolores the dog is also a star of the piece, and the most integral of characters as well, putting one in mind immediately of the great Bogart picture High Sierra. Once tale reaches the culmination, where man and dog are to have their respective futures decided on the bridge of the title, suspense is at breaking point and Annakin gives us the coup de grace. Excellent movie. 8.5/10
