BORDERTOWN. Warner Brothers, 1935. Paul Muni, Bette Davis, Margaret Lindsay, Eugene Pallette, Robert Barrat, Soledad Jiménez. Suggested by the book Border Town, by Carroll Graham. Director: Archie Mayo.

   This was recently shown as part of TCM’s Latino Festival that’s been going on all month long, and if I may say so, there’s something of mixed message made by this movie. The focus of the films in this series is how Latinos, in this case Mexican-Americans, have been portrayed on the screen.

   How it works out in this case, I’ll get back to — with a small CAVEAT that more of the story line is going to be hinted at, if not revealed, than is customarily done on this blog.

   Paul Muni, who was Jewish and a Hollywood superstar in the 1930s, plays Johnny Ramirez in Bordertown, a young resident of Los Angeles’s Mexican Quarter who after five years of hard work, earns his law degree from a small but apparently reputable night school. As in Crime and Punishment, reviewed here not too long ago, the opening scenes are of the graduating ceremony.

   And as with Raskolnikov in that other film, getting a degree is not the same thing as making a success of yourself. Johnny’s first appearance in court is a disaster. Summarily disbarred, he heads for Mexico and in a town just south of the border where he works his way up from a night club bouncer to a 25% partnership.

   And where the boss’s wife (a blonde and coolly calculating Bette Davis) has eyes for him, which is where the noir aspects kick in. Luckily for Johnny, he is unaware of what you’ve already probably gathered happens next.

   His eyes are instead on Dale Elwell, the female socialite who was on the other side of his one and only courtroom case (Margaret Lindsay), but who comes slumming down to see Johnny’s new casino, built with you-know-who’s money.

   As I warned you earlier, I’ve already told you more of the plot that I should and normally would, but I think in this case, no matter how little I told, you’d fill in much of the details on your own anyway – and besides, you need the Big Picture.

   The black-and-white photography is fine — even in the silent era, cameramen at the major studios really knew their business — but as for the story itself, there is not a subtle line or scene in this movie. Once started, you will have the continual feeling that you know what exactly will happen next, and it does.

   Not that that’s a real complaint. I enjoy stories with romantic — and deadly — triangles like this, and if they hadn’t been filmed many times before this movie was made, they’ve certainly been made many times since.

   So, except for the ending, I enjoyed this film. In terms of Latino images, there’s nothing too preachy about the injustices that poorer Mexican-Americans faced in a elite world of wealthy WASPs in the 20s and 30s, or at least I didn’t find it so, but the ending? It can take the wind right out of your sails. It took quite a few more years, apparently, before interracial romances would be deemed fitting and proper subject matter for movie viewers to see.

   Whatever message may have been intended before the final scene, if there was one, is quickly whisked away, and very nearly without a trace.

PostScript. I’ve just discovered an almost three minute trailer for the film on the Amazon page offering the DVD for sale. I suspect that you hunt around, you may find more of the movie available online. Check YouTube and similar sites.