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This chapter further explains Mae Murray’s break with M-G-M and how she ignored Louis B. Mayer’s demands that she return to Hollywood from France or face blackballing from the industry. The chapter also explores how Murray’s son, Koran Mdivani, was brought to the United States from France and how his parents were able to keep his birth secret for 16 months. It examines the theories around Koran’s mysterious birth.

In this chapter, Anthony Mann’s first M-G-M film, Border Incident, originally developed as an Eagle-Lion sequel to T-Men, is analyzed. The story of gangsters exploiting undocumented Mexican migrant workers (“braceros”) and smuggling them into the U.S., incorporates elements of the noir, policier, western, and social document. Noteworthy for casting a Mexican actor (Ricardo Montalban) in a heroic role as a Federal Police agent working undercover, Border Incident takes a timely subject matter and effectively frames it within a commercial structure. Filmed on location along the U.S.-Mexico border, the film contains some of Mann’s first “western” images with views of men on horseback and mountain pass shootouts. Aspects of the film closely examined include the origins and controversies of the bracero program, the evolution of the film narrative, the alterations in political content from treatment to screenplay stages, and frame captures of several pivotal sequences cinematographer John Alton captured for Mann.

Anthony Mann’s final contemporary crime thriller, Side Street, which this chapter analyzes, marked a dramatic return to the city of his pre-Hollywood career. Extensive review of several Sydney Boehm screenplay drafts illustrates the social and class concerns of the narrative, which the film partially translates to the screen in spite of being an M-G-M production. This emotionally wrenching film noir of a part time mail carrier (Farley Granger) stealing $30,000 from criminals in order to support his pregnant wife (Cathy O’Donnell) makes extraordinary uses of New York City locations, particularly during the car chase finale through the Manhattan financial district, which is studied in detail. The chapter monitors the location filming and Mann’s confident handling of atmosphere and situations, which contribute greatly to the power and verisimilitude of the piece. Readers receive insight into the precise locales used as well as how studio front office interference affected the end results.

Set on a winter night in 1861 at the start of the Civil War, The Tall Target is the subject of this chapter because it is written, designed, structured, and directed, like a contemporary crime story. A former New York Police detective (Dick Powell), determined to alert President-elect Abraham Lincoln of an assassination plot, boards a Baltimore-bound train and soon finds his own life in peril. Anthony Mann arrived late to the M-G-M project but leaves his directorial mark through skilful staging of actors within confined spaces and an assured handling of visually and thematically dark material. The chapter argues that The Tall Target would have benefitted from Mann having greater control over the material, which suffers from one-dimensional characterizations and occasional political ambiguity. The touching début of Ruby Dee as a freed slave is analyzed along with the revised Art Cohn screenplay, which gave greater depth to her character.

This chapter contains new research on an aspect of Anthony Mann’s work never before analyzed or acknowledged – his direction of the now lost film noir short, “Load.” Originally to have been included in the M-G-M anthology, It’s a Big Country (1952), Mann’s segment starring Jean Hersholt and Ann Harding was cut prior to release. Through analysis of the original 1931 Dudley Schnabel short story and its subsequent Luther Davis screen adaptations (preserved at USC), the chapter reconstructs the spirit of the Mann film about a meek Scandinavian immigrant load dispatcher at a Midwest utilities plant who, during a massive power outage in the region, learns that his delinquent son has killed a man during a robbery. The surviving scripts indicate that both Mann and Davis did stellar work in visualizing and verbalizing the emotional intensity of this dramatic story, which may have been the most personal film Mann ever made.

This chapter discusses the decline of the M-G-M studios, and Walters release in 1964 after twenty-two years under contract. The role of the independent director is explored, as is Walters’ work at Columbia directing Cary Grant’s final film Walk, Don’t Run (1966). This hit comedy also becomes Walters final feature film. He begins a personal relationship with Joseph Anthony. The popular resurgence of the movie musical in the 1960s is surveyed; Walters work on Lucille Ball’s sitcom Here’s Lucy is discussed. Walters desire to direct the film adaptation of the musical Mame is presented, with Ball’s explanation of why that didn’t happen.