Adam Peters (60%) A somewhat pulpy crime classic featuring a very bad ass Ray Milland, a suitcase filled with cash, and quite an interesting - if quite well worn plot. This is as vibrantly shot as it is entertaining, with a decent level of pacing. And once the opening sequence begins you'd assume this is a full-on romantic flick, but it's not. In fact this quite a surprisingly violent film at times, with real flashes of sharp bite that still hold up even today. There may not be a whole lot here in terms of depth, but as far as relatively tough, censor pushing Hollywood pictures go that passers the time without ever really dragging its feet then look no further.

bkoganbing Watching The River's Edge today put me in mind of The Treasure Of The Sierra Madre. Just imagine if one of those treasure hunters had been a woman on the trip. Think they had problems then?Ray Milland is the Fred C. Dobbs of the piece. Only he's not looking for gold, he's got a valise with a lot of money in cash. A notorious grifter he's on the run and headed for his former girlfriend Debra Paget. He wants the services of her current husband Anthony Quinn who is a guide and tracker to take him across the Mexican border and away from the law.Given Paget's beauty and her involvement with both of these men you can imagine what a tense trip this was. Milland commits two murders along the way, that of a US Border Patrolmen and Chubby Johnson an old prospector Like The Treasure Of The Sierra Madre 90% of the film is focused on the three leads. At no time is anyone truly sure of how they stand with each other. Paget the most confused of all, she loves her husband Quinn in her own way, but Milland is the guy who always scratched her itch.In the end what happens to Milland is almost eerily reminiscent of what happened to Humphrey Bogart in the previous film. And as I wrote in my review of The Treasure Of The Sierra Madre, God really does have a sense of humor.

Spikeopath The River's Edge is directed by Allan Dwan and adapted to screenplay by James Leicester from the story "The Highest Mountain" written by Harold Jacob Smith. It stars Ray Milland, Anthony Quinn and Debra Paget. A CinemaScope production with colour by De Luxe, music is by Louis Forbes and cinematography by Harold Lipstein. Ben Cameron (Quinn) and his wife Meg (Paget) are struggling to make their New Mexico ranch function as a happy working home. Enter shifty Nardo Denning (Milland), who has a past with Meg and has ulterior motives for suddenly appearing on the scene… "You know, if you were on a desert island with that guy and there was nothing but rocks, pretty soon he would have all the rocks moved to his side of the beach" Falling somewhere in the void between Noir and Western, The River's Edge is a delightfully sly and compact thriller that also boasts gorgeous location photography and splendidly garish colour compositions. It was kill or be killed all the way down to The River's Edge! Narratively it's a straight case of two men and one girl who wind up on the lam, with the foxy gal bouncing back and forth between the two men's affections like a ping-pong ball on legs. All three characters are flawed, their means and motivations deliberately scratchy, it makes for a near kinky noir love triangle, with dialogue that's often cynical or deliberately obtuse. The two guys are polar opposites, Denning is a spiv like manipulator, a dastard, Cameron is muscular but sincere, while Meg, with her shock of red hair scorching the landscape, has a murky past and is either confused or playing the cards close to her chest? Something is going to have to give... In the mix is violence, potent violence at that, a suitcase full of cash and the perils of the terrain that the trio traverse. It's with the latter where Dwan and Lipstein come to the fore, the Scope photography and framing of characters amongst the Mexican locales (Cuernavaca, Morelos), really belies the B budget afforded the production. Were it not for some cheap looking studio interior shots-the remarkable recovery of one character after an accident-and a twist in the ending that should have gone the other way, this would be better thought of than just being considered a B movie culter. Neon pinks and grubby greens mingle with shady grey characters for a whole bunch of fun. 7.5/10 Fox's Region 1 DVD features a very decent print and a detailed commentary track by noir aficionados James Ursini and Alain Silver.

helpless_dancer When a married woman's old lover comes back into her life things began to go to hell for her and hubby. The old flame had a suitcase full of wrongfully gained capital that he wanted the pair to help him smuggle south of the border, therefore an uneasy alliance was formed and a dangerous trek through the badlands was undertaken. I felt that Milland's character's actions at the end were way out of character: and just how is it that Quinn's character managed to bite those slugs out of the cases? Ever try that? The teeth will go first every time. Fairly entertaining but way too much sluggish dialogue.