Carl Schaffner is one of Rod Steiger's better screen roles - his New York actor mannerisms are almost completely sublimated into the cautious and scheming survivor, the kind who can slip through a disaster or political upheaval in one piece by being logical, quiet and ruthless. We don't know much about Schaffner except that he's a widower executive who looks out for himself exclusively. A telling detail has his loyal staff informing on him to the police. They rationalizing their actions as being exactly what Schaffner would do - take care of Number One.

We expect Across the Bridge to snowball into a mass of problems Carl can't solve, like a mature version of Quicksand. His situation does get hairy. When he finds out his new Paul Scarff identity is hotter than his old one, he carefully reclaims his old passport too. Scarff has the necessary visas to get into Mexico. Once he's there Carl can reveal his true identity and emerge again as Schaffner. Scotland Yard (in the person of Bernard Lee) can't easily extradite him from Mexico. Schaffner uses a needy pair of Americans (David Knight and Marla Landi (she of Hound of the Baskervilles fame) as pawns in his plan.

Of course, there are things Schaffner doesn't take into account. Scarff is wanted in Mexico, but he's also a favorite son in this particular border town, and the locals don't take kindly to foreigners who inform on their own. The local police authority (Noel Willman) sees big money in Schaffner and withholds his passport so he can't leave. He puts the pressure on so the bigshot will ransom himself with a bribe, while the Scotland Yard detective schemes to have Schaffner kidnapped back to the American side.

The details of Schaffner's faulty plan are nicely present. Finding a double on a train with just the right passport is a sticky coincidence that the film minimizes. The only bit Savant hasn't worked out is Schaffner's swapping passports instead of just stealing Scarff's. If he drops the Schaffner identity completely, how is he going to access his millions in Mexico City?

1957 audiences preferred glossy escapism to tales about bad men becoming an outcast bum in a dirty, corrupt Mexican town, and Across the Bridge doesn't relieve the pain with characters we like or identify with. Steiger's Schaffner becomes a humbled, isolated pariah living in filth. The Mexican police chief might as well be Satan and Bernard Lee's detective a humorless angel of vengeance. The American couple facilitate a lot of grief with their attempts to profit from the intrigue, and the killer's relatives aren't particularly sympathetic either. Two crooks have their identities and souls stolen or beaten from them bit by bit, in a Conradian Secret Sharer sort of way. Eventually, we're just left with the dog. Schaffner's fate perhaps has a bit too much in common with grim "art" films like Lonely are the Brave, but this is before the 60s wave of selfconsciously meaningful cinema.

Schaffner's flight across America and into Mexico is all the more interesting in that it's all filmed in England and Spain, using gypsies for Mexicans. It's not a bad job, but most of the Spanish sounds terrible and it won't fool anybody. Americans and Mexicans are all played by Europeans. Noel Willman (of Kiss of the Vampire) doesn't look any more Mexican than Marla Landi looks like a Texan. Scarff's Mexican wife has no lines, which is a good thing because she's played by an actress named Ingeborg von Kusserow! After the variable accent imitations, it's amusing to have the Texan motel owner come right out with a Cockney accent.

It's also clear that most of the actors didn't go to Spain either. Bernard Lee and Noel Willman are always seen in interiors, or cutaways, attesting to director Ken Annakin's skills. In one wide shot Lee's double snoozes on a porch, and awakens as Lee in a closeup probably filmed back in London.

Shanachie's DVD of Across the Bridge is a fine presentation of a Carlton transfer of the film. Agreeably, it looks like an original NTSC transfer and not a PAL conversion, so the projection speed is correct. The B&W image is enhanced and sharp. Overall the encoding is a little lighter than what we've come to expect from Anchor Bay transfers of Canal+ imports, but it's still very good. The soundtrack is fine, enabling us to enjoy the James Bernard score that sounds very much like his Hammer work from the time.

There's a half hour interview docu with director Ken Annakin (Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines). He talks a lot about Rod Steiger's acting style clashing with Bernard Lee, but Across the Bridge is a favorite film for them both. Annakin explains the shooting in Spain and the story of the specially trained dog. He tends to tell the plot of the film too much - everything before the arrival at the bridge is not in the book, he says. The docu was done by "Tomahawk Films" for Carlton in 2002.

Artwork and box design are a little light. The awkward package text gives away the story twist and the ending. I visited the Shanachie website looking for more gems like Across the Bridge but found only music-related DVDs being promoted there.

On a scale of Excellent, Good, Fair, and Poor, Across the Bridge rates:
Movie: Very Good
Video: Very Good
Sound: Excellent
Supplements: interview docu
Packaging: Keep case
Reviewed: May 12, 2004