ACROSS THE BRIDGE. J. Arthur Rank, UK, 1957. Rod Steiger, David Knight, Marla Landi, Noel Willman, Bernard Lee, Bill Nagy, “Dolores.” Based on a story by Graham Greene. Director: Ken Annakin.

ACROSS THE BRIDGE Rod Steiger

   I do not believe I have ever seen a movie in which Rod Steiger had an important if not starring role that I did not find fascinating in one way or another, and that fascination has almost always meant considerable enjoyment.

   I cannot tell you why I had never heard of this movie until last month, nor do I remember who pointed it out to me then, but I owe that person or website a huge, great big thank you. I was fascinated with Mr. Steiger’s performance all the way through, and I enjoyed every minute of it tremendously.

   Steiger plays a German financier named Carl Schaffner in Across the Bridge, an arrogant fellow (as arrogant as having lots of money, mostly questionably gained, will allow, if not cause) who gets into trouble with Scotland Yard while he’s in Manhattan scheming away at his next plan.

   Trouble that’s serious enough that he makes his way headlong out of the country by train – no passenger lists, you see – but not fast enough for the news of his escape to make the newspapers while he’s still riding the rails.

ACROSS THE BRIDGE Rod Steiger

   Thinking fast, he drugs a fellow passenger who looks like him, a gentleman traveling with Mexican papers, which he steals after dropping him off the end of the train. Fate has fickle fingers. The man who identity Schaffner has assumed is even more wanted than he is – an assassin with 100,000 pesos on his head, dead or alive.

   Ending up – after considerable travail, which I will restrain myself from going into – in a small town in northern Mexico, Schaffner finds himself with an unfriendly police chief watching his every move; a man from Scotland Yard breathing down his neck (but unable to touch him as long as he does not cross the bridge back to the US); no friends; and a dwindling supply of money. He is a victim of his own making, a desperate man trapped by his own avarice and greed.

   What Across the Bridge is, in my not-so-humble opinion, is a true noir film, as noir as noir can get. In this case, and I invite you to see this for yourself, the ultimate irony is that the worse his problems become, the more we (the audience) begin to empathize with him, with the plot taking some very surprising (if not bizarre) twists and turns (plus a good old-fashioned handful of healthy coincidence as well) along the way.

ACROSS THE BRIDGE Rod Steiger

   There is one note I have to add, and it’s an important one. I said he had no friends in the paragraph above. I was incorrect in saying that, quite wrong.

   You cannot watch this movie and ignore the role played by mongrel dog (part cocker spaniel?) who belonged to the man whose identity he stole. A dog who steals nearly every scene she’s in. Remarkably, and totally in spite of himself, Schaffner does has one friend, one with the saddest eyes you will ever see.

   I don’t know whether Dolores was a method actor or not, but it is one of the characteristics of Steiger’s performances that he is known for. During the making of this film this put him at odds, so we are told, with Bernard Lee, for example, who plays Schaffner’s not totally ethical adversary from Scotland Yard, but the technique gives Steiger an edge up in every film I’ve seen him in. Across the Bridge, a movie that’s unfairly all but unknown today, is no exception.