The Bottom of the Bottle (1956)
Actors:
George Anderson (actor),
Orlando Beltran (actor),
Bruce Bennett (actor),
Jack Carson (actor),
Kim Charney (actor),
Joseph Cotten (actor),
Jim Davis (actor),
Brad Dexter (actor),
John Doucette (actor),
Martin Gerrish (actor),
Pedro Gonzalez Gonzalez (actor),
Lee Gonzalez (actor),
Grizzly Green (actor),
Tod Griffin (actor),
Robert Adler (actor),
Plot: Patrick Martin (Joseph Cotten), known as P.M., is a wealthy attorney and rancher big-man-in-town in the border town of Nogales, Arizona. He returns home to find his brother Donald (Van Johnson)hiding in his garage. A former drunkard, Donald had been sent to the penitentiary five years previously for killing a man in a barroom brawl. It was in self-defense but P.M. hadn't defended his brother and he was convicted. Donald has escaped and wants his brother to help him across the Santa Cruz River into the Mexico-side Nogales, where his wife (Shirley Patterson as Shawn Smith)and children (Kim Charney and Sandy Deschler) are in dire straits. The straits get even dier when P.M. tells him the river is flooded and it will be days before anyone can cross. And P.M. is all a'twitter because his wife Nora (Ruth Roman), whom he married after Donald had gone to prison, doesn't know about his jail-bird brother. He introduces Donald to Nora and the rest of his Cadillac Cowboy and ranch society friends as an old friend, and is kept busy trying to make sure old Donald doesn't find anything harder that ginger ale to drink. Donald gets a telephone call telling him that his family has gone from dire straits to destitution and when P.M. won't get some money to them through his contacts in the Mexico side of Nogales, Donald knocks him down and grabs a couple of bottles of whiskey and dashes out of the house into the rain.
Keywords: alcoholic, alcoholism, assumed-identity, based-on-novel, border-crossing, brother-vs-brother, delirium-tremens, deputy, drunk-fight, escaped-convict
Genres:
Drama,
Quotes:
Donald Martin: Don't let that beer worry you. I've become a soft-drink man.
Nora Martin: Well, that is how it goes. Our cows have children, our mares have children, but no children for the lady of the manor.
Pat 'P.M.' Martin: I didn't mean to be that abrupt before. His name isn't Eric Bell, Nora. He's my brother Donald. I know I never told you I had a brother. I never told anyone.::Nora Martin: Why? What did he do?::Pat 'P.M.' Martin: It was some kind of brawl.
Pat 'P.M.' Martin: I'd appreciate if you'd keep my inquiry confidential.::Luis Romero: But naturally, mi amigo. Naturally.
Nora Martin: Don't you think it would be healthy to look at ourselves... at our marriage?::Pat 'P.M.' Martin: Sure, but let the mirror take in the whole room. But what about you? What have you done to make our marriage gel?::Nora Martin: I thought about it all day, Pat. It's been a day for thinking.
Pat 'P.M.' Martin: When a man is trying to make a gesture for the first time in his life, no one has the right to talk him out of it.