The
Film Noirs
of Anthony Mann
“T Men” (1947) and “Border Incident” (1948) are similar films in that both have investigators from US government agencies conducting undercover operations. In the case of “T Men,” it’s agents from the US Treasury Department pursuing counterfeiters and in “Border Incident” it’s agents of the Immigration and Naturalization Service of the US Customs Bureau going after the gang that is robbing and killing illegal farm workers on their way back to Mexico.
“T Men” begins with a shot of the treasury department’s official seal and the customs bureau worked closely with the makers of “Border Incident.” Encyclopedic considers “T Men” a close-one-eye “film noir” in that “the jingoism of Treasury department may be ignored and a true vision of the noir underworld may emerge.” The book suggests "[that] the very first shot, opening a night scene, in which mysterious figures shoot it out, staged in strange perspectives, contradicts the matter-of-fact introduction.”
Film critic Bosley Crowther wrote in The New York Times, in January 1947,
“Hand it to [the Edward Small Productions] craftsmen: they have turned out a cops-and-robbers film in this new ‘semi-documentary’ format which, for action, is one of the best.” Bosley adds “And Anthony Mann has directed the action, of which there is more than enough, with a fine sense of melodramatic timing and a good eye for sharp, severe effects . . . [b]ut, of course, it must be acknowledged that the pattern is fairly well worn and that there isn't a great deal of difference between a T-man and a G-man—on the screen.”
As to the style, Variety, agreed as their January 1947 review noted the “[semi-documentary style] technique in the early reels flavors the footage with pungent realism that builds up to a suspenseful finish at the final fadeout.”
Variety and Crowther didn’t notice a contradiction between the “matter-of-fact” introduction and the “cops-and-robbers” aspect of the film on one hand and the “true vision of the noir underworld” on the other because there isn’t one. That the “criminal underworld” is painted in dark strokes and the forces of “good” bookend the film in the moral light of law enforcement is the nature of the “jingoism” at work. While the jingoism of “T Men” might be ignored with one eye shut, it is too overwhelming in “Border Incident” to be dismissed and it is its excess of jingoism that renders the film almost a parody of other “film noirs.” Considering recent developments in the state of Arizona in the US at the time of this writing, the plight of the braceros hasn’t improved one iota.
Consider the opening voice over of “Border Incident”:
“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 farm 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 film ends with this narration:
“... the workers, now safe and secure, living under the protection of two great republics, and the bounty of God Almighty.”
“T Men” and “Border Incident” are a far cry from the quintessential Hollywood film noirs made before 1947. With John Alton behind the camera in both films, the dark environments that are his forte make the propaganda easier to swallow. Even so, these films are no more than propaganda designed to instill faith in the institutions of justice and law enforcement and they’re not even close to being the worst offenders.
Another spin on the Treasury agent is “Undercover Man” (1949) with Glenn Ford and Nina Foch that offers the love-of-a-good-woman angle toward salvation. Anything is bearable with a good girl around to sew on buttons and make coffee.
The notion that these films are film noirs come from the erroneous assumption that postwar crime films are de facto film noirs and the misinterpretation that film noir means “black film” and that John Alton’s use of light and shadow represents a black film, ie, a film noir. Recent research has disproved both notions and while defining film noir will always have a content versus style aspect to it, understanding that the basis for the style definition is based on slipshod research, unsupportable assumptions and assertions and creates a superficial yardstick for many films that deserve to be appreciated on a more nuanced level.
There isn’t room in this essay to recount the unfortunate legacy of HUAC. Its influence on Hollywood and the films made there would be catastrophic. Movies such as “I Married A Communist” (aka “The Woman on Pier 13”) and “I Was A Communist For The FBI” are only the most obvious examples of a different type of jingoism. Encyclopedic recognizes the Red Scare influences in “I Was A Communist For The FBI” yet states that the film is “the most visually noir” of the Red Scare films that also includes – according to the book – “The Red Menace,” “Iron Curtain” and “The Whip Hand.”
This jingoism went largely unanswered with the notable exception of Herman Biberman’s “Salt of the Earth” in 1954. Produced, written and directed by blacklisted talent, “Salt of the Earth” tells the story of poor white and Mexican-American zinc miners and their strike against the mining company. Shot in neo-realist style with actual miners and their families as cast members, along with a handful of professional actors, the film was vilified by Hollywood and only about a dozen theatres agreed to show it. The Hollywood Reporter and Pauline Kale denounced it as “communist propaganda” although Bosley Crowther gave a positive review in the New York Times.
This notion that style somehow defines “noir” has totally warped how films – especially films from Hollywood in the 1940s and 1950s – are perceived. Do a shadow and a gat equalize the notion of “the bounty of God”? Forgetting the French and even the Italian films, the early Hollywood film noirs as mentioned in “The Great Flamarion” essay, aren’t cops-and-robbers movies and they aren’t films that glorify the police or other government agencies as so many films that were released after 1947 did.
While bolstering the police force and other government agencies in crime films seems a natural progression in the postwar Red Scare world, women and families also became the targets of another kind of jingoism.