- The Bottom of the Bottle
Infobox Film
name = The Bottom of the Bottle
image_size =
caption =
director =Henry Hathaway
producer =Buddy Adler
writer =Sydney Boehm (Writer)Georges Simenon (Novel)
starring =Joseph Cotten Van Johnson
music =Leigh Harline
cinematography =Lee Garmes
editing =David Bretherton
distributor =20th Century Fox
released =February 1 ,1956
runtime = 88 mins.
country = USA
language = English"The Bottom of the Bottle" is a 1956
drama film based on thenovel written byGeorges Simenon during his stay inNogales, Arizona . The novel was adapted for film bySydney Boehm and directed byHenry Hathaway .Overview
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 theSanta Cruz River into the Mexico-side Nogales, where his wife (Shawn Smith) and children (Kim Charney andSandy Descher ) are in dire straits. The straits get even more dire when P.M. tells him the river is flooded and it will be days before anyone can cross. And P.M. is all atwitter 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 theMexico side of Nogales, Donald knocks him down and grabs a couple of bottles of whiskey and dashes out of the house into the rain.External links
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