Across The Bridge

1 9 5 7 (UK)

Rod Steiger is a crooked German-born businessman on the run from Scotland Yard and the FBI after embezzling $3 million in company funds. On a train in the USA he encounters and murders a Mexican man and acquires his passport and assumes the man's identity in order to to evade the authorities. It transpires that the Mexican is a wanted murderer with a ransom on his head.

Once in Mexico, Steiger is caught between the Scotland Yard man trying to lure him into American territory, and the Mexican police chief, who withholds Steiger's own passport in order to indulge in a spot of blackmail. As the Mexican police chief, Noel Willman gives a wily, restrained performance which contrasts admirably with the Steiger technique.

These complicated goings-on are background to a remarkable study of mental and physical decay by Steiger. At times the movie is irritatingly over-fussy and mannered, but Steiger dominates the screen.

Director Ken Annakin has excellently created the atmosphere of a sleepy, brooding Mexican border town (although the exteriors were filmed in Spain). An American remake, Double Take, was released in 2001.