Poseidon-3 Review of The Bottom of the Bottle

The Bottom of the Bottle (1956)

Arresting drama concerning an escaped convict and his respectable brother.

[16 June 2009]

A rather trim study of family discord and torment, this film offers a surprisingly expansive cast of experienced actors along with some decent acting and a good set piece or two. Cotten plays a wealthy ranch owner living just north of the Mexican border in a fairly remote area. One night, during a heavy storm, he finds his estranged brother Johnson at his home, freshly escaped from prison and eager to cross into Mexico where his wife and children are already waiting. Before Cotten can get used to the idea that his convict brother has invaded his self-created paradise, his wife Roman bursts in with a passel of their rich, heavy-drinking friends. Cotten decides to pass Johnson off as a long lost friend, but must wait out the rain and the dangerously high river before getting Johnson out of the picture. Unfortunately, Johnson may become too much to deal with before that happens. Cotten has a fairly one note role to play and does it adequately if not spectacularly. It's kind of a stubborn, bitter role without a ton of dimension. He and Johnson are very unlikely brothers, though they try hard to make it work. Johnson comes off surprisingly well. Best known for boy-next-door roles and colorful froth, he is wonderfully dour and serious here and has a manly, rugged presence. It's among the best of his screen roles. Roman really only gets to register heavily in one scene against Cotten and otherwise is used more decoratively. Her nicotine-laden voice can take some getting used to, however. The society friends are played by a familiar gaggle of faces, though most of them have to scratch for anything notable to say or do. Carson, for example, is capable of doing more than he's given, though Hayes, as his wife, enjoys a gossipy part. Also to be spotted are Dexter, Davis and Lindsay. (The film was shot in widescreen without a lot of close-ups, which means that smaller TVs cannot give full justice to the actors when they're shot in group situations, something that happens a great deal here.) Former Olympian and movie Tarzan Bennett plays the local lawman. Gates has one scene as Johnson's anxiety-ridden wife, surrounded by three children, all of whom had busy careers before the camera in their youth. One thing that helps the movie a lot is the location filming. Interior scenes, though, take place on the spacious and sometimes patently false-looking (Roman's kitchen, for example) sets that 20th Century Fox favored during this time, no doubt meant to glean best use out of the Cinemascope lens. Some of the dramatics get a little overheated at times, but many solid scenes appear as well, one involving Morgan as a bar proprietor. There's also a convincingly treacherous river that figures into the climax. It packs a fair amount of entertainment into its hour and a half running time.