Mexican Manhunt (1953) User Reviews

"When I stay he gives me the rush of the vagabond"

[hwg1957-102-265704 · 6/10 · 26 October 2023]

The plot is quite good and the twist at the end works well. It was mostly filmed on location which added to the setting of what is basically a chase movie. Director Rex Bailey keeps the story moving along nicely. Top billed George Brent is George Brent. I liked better ubiquitous character actor Morris Ankrum as the exiled and weary Tip Morgan and Alberto Morin as the faithful Pablo whose demise is rather poignant. Also liked Marvin Press as the unfortunate Cookie, viciously bumped off by his fellow gangsters when he sustains a wound. Unfortunately Hillary Brooke is wasted in her role, only appearing after half the movie is over. The film could have done with more of her charming villainy.

George Brent's last starring role in a film

[jarrodmcdonald-1 · 19 February 2018]

George Brent had his last leading role in a movie when he made this low-budget drama for Monogram/Allied Artists. A bit of a letdown considering the great stuff he had done with Bette Davis, Barbara Stanwyck and Olivia De Havilland who would all continue to make big budget films for some time after this.

The popular leading man of the 1930s and 1940s still looks fit for a guy of his age, and his pleasing personality is apparent in all his scenes. But the routine plot and by-the-numbers character he plays is certainly no challenge for him. Or for some of us watching, who wish to stay awake. In some ways, you can see the influence television was already having on mainstream films such as this one. It does not differ from any crime yarn that would be made on the small screen during this era, except that at around 70 minutes and with no commercials, it's a longer drama with a number of outdoor sequences.

Helping the production is actress Hillary Brooke who specialized in playing crooked "dames" as well as Marjorie Lord who appears as Brent's girl Friday. Lord's movie career never really went beyond B films like this, and she would soon make a more lasting mark on TV as Danny Thomas' wife on his long-running sitcom.

I'd recommend MEXICAN MANHUNT not exactly for the story (it's been done a million times) but for anyone who likes George Brent. He deserved a better script but shows us he still had considerable charm and was still every bit a class act though his days as a movie star were now over.

No more effective than an hour long anthology tv crime drama.

[mark.waltz · 4/10 · 27 July 2018]

He doesn't twitter or tweet.

So says private detective George Brent to his barely seen assistant Marjorie Lord as he goes off to visit an American in Mexico (Morris Ankrum) who needs help getting back to the United States with daughter Karen Sharpe after hiding out in Mexico for years. He's been threatened to stay out of the USA because of his knowledge of the guilty party of a long ago crime, and when the gang who threatened Ankrum discover that he's on his way back, they go out of their way to convince him that it's not the best idea.

Traveling along with them is the good natured American born Mexican (Alberto Morin) who keeps claiming that he was like a mother to Sharpe, and risks everything to save the feisty, unafraid Sharpe. The criminal gang, lead by aging femme fatale Hilary Brooke, is obviously determined to stop Ankrum from getting anywhere and this means that there will be casualties, even if it means turning on members of their own gang. Morin is amusing, especially when he refers to himself as an American w**b**k in Mexico.

Watchable, if predictable and filled with plot holes, this is old fashioned even by 1950's standards, obviously of low budget TV quality. The dialog is cliched and the villains completely one dimensional. But for a 70 minute bottom of the bill second feature you can't expect "The Big Sleep" or "Out of the Past". It's second string film noir with cardboard cutout characters and serviceable acting, but not much else. One last hurrah for George Brent who comes out of this unscathed.