The River's Edge 1957

23 Jun 2021 by John Chard

I'm just a farmer, Denning, I don't know what the word "impeccable" means. If it means what it sounds like, uh, congratulations. 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.