The Bottom of the Bottle is a 1956 American CinemaScope drama film directed by Henry Hathaway and starring Joseph Cotten, Van Johnson and Ruth Roman.

Patrick Martin (Joseph Cotten), known as P.M., is a wealthy attorney and rancher in the border town of Nogales, Arizona.

Donald has escaped and wants his brother to help him across the Santa Cruz River into the Mexico-side Nogales, where his wife (Shawn Smith) and children (Kim Charney and Sandy Descher) are in dire straits.

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.

P.M. is reluctant to aid a felon, but eventually shows Donald a place in the river to cross safely into Mexico, but falls off his horse and then nearly drowns.