Watch Across the Bridge For Free

good film but with many flaws

A lot of fun.

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

"Across the Bridge" has an intriguing opening as embezzler, Rod Steiger, switches identities with an assassin who turns out is wanted even more by the police than Steiger is. This promising beginning eventually leads to at least a bunch of what seem like very contrived coincidences in a Mexican border town. This is not a bad film, and Rod Steiger gives a first rate performance, but the lack of believability brought about by the questionable script contrivances, drags everything down a notch or two. What could have been a spectacular film, along the lines of "Touch of Evil", is really no more than a slightly above average movie. - MERK

Like other reviewers here, I saw Across the Bridge decades ago, but have never forgotten it.Rod Steiger plays a powerful, self-centered financier whose business empire, at the beginning of the film, is starting to crumble under charges of illegalities. He flees for Mexico on a train with a suitcase full of money.His disregard for others is confirmed when he casually murders a fellow train passenger in order to assume his identity and pass across the border.Once in Mexico, the authorities, under pressure from U.S. officials, put pressure on him to return "across the bridge" to the United States, so that he can be arrested. Most of the film is concerned with the slow stripping away of this once-powerful man's options, to where he is left sleeping on the streets, befriended only by a dog. The ending of the film is emotionally powerful, and probably the main reason why so many of us have never forgotten this movie.Since I wrote this review, I've seen the film again, on DVD (in 2005). It does not hold up that well. There's a subplot I had completely forgotten about. I realize now what I remembered about the film was highly selective. In truth, the movie has some interesting parts, but it's not the classic I remembered it being. By all means see it, but it's rather dated.

In this film, which my ex-English teacher lent to me to show me what kind of cinematic experiences I've been missing out on, I was so confused until the very end about which actor was Rod Steiger. After seeing Mr. Steiger in Elia Kazan's On the Waterfront, I was convinced that he was only that. But it was when the end credits came up that I was utterly taken aback and mortified by the way it said Carl Schraffner...........Rod Steiger! It was indeed the man with the funny accent and the simply blended performance that was one of my personal favorites. This is indeed a hidden cinematic masterpiece and is highly underrated, and deserves a lot more credit than it got. I can't believe this didn't even get nominated for an Oscar. I thought the overall production was fantastic, all of the actors, especially Rod Steiger, and the direction were fantastic! The writing could've been upped a notch, but otherwise, this film left me speechless and yearning for more. But one thing that I didn't like was the dissatisfaction in the end.

I saw this film, based on a Graham Greene story, 30 years ago on Norwegian TV. Rod Steiger plays a crooked businessman on the lam, who flees across the border into Mexico. The U.S. and Mexican authorities collude to ensure that he won't have access to funds. With nowhere to stay, he is followed by a small dog, whom he first resents; they end up in the desert, where the dog saves his life. A wrenching portrayal of a man who is progressively stripped, first of what he previously valued, and then of everything.