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With the 1957 release of "Across the Bridge"- Annakin launched into the world of film noir amid probing psychological drama. Rod Steiger delivered one of the finest performances of his distinguished career playing an international business swindler who is compelled to elude Scotland Yard and flees to a small Mexican border town.
The film, adapted from a Graham Greene story, finds Steiger totally isolated as the merciless police chief, who detests the wealthy magnate, refusing to allow him to leave town. The town's citizens detest Steiger and refuse to take his money, turning against him.
The negative citizen reaction comes after Steiger, to curry favor with authorities, turns in the name of a wanted man who is subsequently killed by police. He was perceived as a hero of the oppressed people. The presence of his widow pursues Steiger and ultimately he is befriended only by a dog named Dolores as he is compelled to sleep outdoors after being turned out of the hotel where he had stayed.
Since "Across the Bridge"- was a British J. Arthur Rank production, a standing provision involved filming in Britain or Europe, and so Annakin shot the film in Spain as that nation was used to substitute for Mexico.
A good talent indicator is how a professional is treated by the top people in that given profession. In Ken Annakin's case he was held in the highest esteem and given important responsibilities by two of the biggest names in Hollywood history, Walt Disney and Darryl F. Zanuck.
In the Annakin tradition, the films that so greatly enhanced Annakin's reputation for those two film luminaries were international efforts.
Annakin's first Disney film was "Robin Hood and His Merrie Men"- starring Richard Todd, a frequent Annakin leading man, and Peter Finch. The lush color and radiant cinematography of long time friend and ultimate Beverly Hills neighbor Guy Green were among the ingredients that generated robust international box office.
The 1959 release "The Third Man on the Mountain"- was filmed in Switzerland. It involves the effort of James MacArthur to climb a Matterhorn-like mountain called The Citadel.
"Walt Disney told me that "-The Third Man on the Mountain' was his favorite film,"- Annakin told me. "What Walt liked about it was the idea of man seeking to defy the odds and certain forces of nature to achieve a goal. Walt liked the message of the film. It was so much like his own life of establishing goals and doing things that so many others felt could not be accomplished."-
In 1960 the biggest moneymaker of Annakin's career, and one of the top hundred grossing films in cinema history, "Swiss Family Robinson,"- was released. A shipwrecked Swiss family headed by John Mills and Dorothy McGuire arrive by raft in the lush tropical island of Tobago.
Once more the topic was challenging the forces of nature and beating the odds in a colorful international destination. Again James MacArthur appeared, as did another of Annakin's favorite performers, Janet Munro.
At that point Darryl F. Zanuck came into Annakin's life. One of his greatest career challenges occurred, one that was brilliantly surmounted. Cornelius Ryan's blockbuster bestseller about the allied D-Day invasion, "The Longest Day,"- was being filmed and Annakin was called upon to direct the most challenging invasion sequences of the Omaha Beach invasion.
"At the time filming was being done I would go for walks with Darryl Zanuck after dinner,"- Annakin recollected in a personal interview I did. "He was always creating. We had contests during those walks to see who could come up with the most creative ideas."-
Performing along with a stellar cast of movie giants in the 1962 release along with Henry Fonda, John Wayne, Robert Mitchum, Sean Connery, Robert Ryan, Rod Steiger, and Richard Burton, to name but a few, was James MacArthur, who became a close personal friend while appearing in numerous of Annakin's films.
MacArthur in the April 24 Los Angeles Times obituary on Annakin called him "a general, which a director has to be, but he was a man of great intelligence and a very warm soul. But he knew what he wanted and he was going to get it."-
MacArthur capsulated the essence of Annakin:
