It is typical of Orson Welles that he takes a B-movie thriller set on the Mexican border and gives it a Shakespearian grandeur. Welles himself plays the overweight and crooked cop Hank Quinlan as a Falstaffian figure, wringing out the pathos from a character who is sleazy and corrupt, even if he does have an uncanny ability to sniff out the criminals. Marlene Dietrich gives him one of the great send-offs in movie history.-Independent