Rather fun. Widmark is an Ernest Hemingway figure who is suffering from writer's block and has hidden away in a tiny Mexican village where he spends his time fishing and drinking. Jane Greer is on the editorial board of a New York magazine who disguises her identity and seeks him out to write a tell-all piece about him.
When the time comes for Greer to leave, Widmark offers to fly her from the minuscule airfield of San Marcos (not the one in Texas) to Mexico City, but Greer innocently places her metal notepad next to the compass and the airplane gets lost over the Mexican jungle.
After the crash, which is ill-handled by the producer, Widmark and Greer find themselves guests at an ancient but elaborate hacienda in the middle of the bush. Their hosts are Trevor Howard, who turns out to be Lord Haw Haw in hiding, and Peter van Eyck, his companion who claims to be a Dutch archaeologist but is really an escaped Nazi. It's always interesting to see which cultural group the Thought Police will use as villains. One might think, well, 1956, maybe a secret band of Soviet terrorists spreading communism among the Yanomami, but, no, they haven't forgiven the Germans yet.
Widmark begins to twig early on. He's heard their voices somewhere. As Lord Haw Haw, of course, Widmark would have heard his propaganda broadcasts in England during the war. And when, at dinner, van Eyck says he's studying the pre-Mayan cultures of the area, Widmark, in a tone full of suspicion, remarks that he didn't think there were any cultures before the Mayan. Of course, he's wrong. Where does he think the Mayans sprang from, a nest of ants, like myrmidons? Anyway, all that is prologue. The last third of the movie is an exciting chase through the bush, borrowing heavily from "The Most Dangerous Game" and "The Hounds of Zaroff." After they escape, Widmark and Greer plunge through jungle and rivers armed with nothing but a bush knife and the various traps Widmark manages to set to knock off the men and dogs who are in hot pursuit.
There is no poetry in the film. Widmark may be a writer but after a brief exchange with Greer in a cantina, that persona is quickly dispensed with and he becomes a traditional macho anti-intellectual hero in an adventure movie. And when the duo in danger hide a few feet away from Howard and van Eyck, I thought of a similar moment in Fritz Lang's "An American Guerrilla in the Philippines," when Tom Ewell is under a log a few feet from a Japanese patrol. His feet are bare, and they rest on an ant hill. It's a wrenching scene and there's nothing like it in this film from Ray Bolton. All it would have required is a moment's creative thought. Some goofs are obvious too. Widmark manages to escape from a building by killing an armed man with a trick. He leaps over the body and rushes off without bothering to pick up the rifle and arm himself.
That lack of originality doesn't spoil the movie. It's engaging at first. Then it becomes tense -- and the tension lasts until the end. Widmark is almost always likable, even as the heavy, and Greer exudes class. You know, though, if Howard and van Eyck were nowhere near civilization, where did they get all their booze from?
When the time comes for Greer to leave, Widmark offers to fly her from the minuscule airfield of San Marcos (not the one in Texas) to Mexico City, but Greer innocently places her metal notepad next to the compass and the airplane gets lost over the Mexican jungle.
After the crash, which is ill-handled by the producer, Widmark and Greer find themselves guests at an ancient but elaborate hacienda in the middle of the bush. Their hosts are Trevor Howard, who turns out to be Lord Haw Haw in hiding, and Peter van Eyck, his companion who claims to be a Dutch archaeologist but is really an escaped Nazi. It's always interesting to see which cultural group the Thought Police will use as villains. One might think, well, 1956, maybe a secret band of Soviet terrorists spreading communism among the Yanomami, but, no, they haven't forgiven the Germans yet.
Widmark begins to twig early on. He's heard their voices somewhere. As Lord Haw Haw, of course, Widmark would have heard his propaganda broadcasts in England during the war. And when, at dinner, van Eyck says he's studying the pre-Mayan cultures of the area, Widmark, in a tone full of suspicion, remarks that he didn't think there were any cultures before the Mayan. Of course, he's wrong. Where does he think the Mayans sprang from, a nest of ants, like myrmidons? Anyway, all that is prologue. The last third of the movie is an exciting chase through the bush, borrowing heavily from "The Most Dangerous Game" and "The Hounds of Zaroff." After they escape, Widmark and Greer plunge through jungle and rivers armed with nothing but a bush knife and the various traps Widmark manages to set to knock off the men and dogs who are in hot pursuit.
There is no poetry in the film. Widmark may be a writer but after a brief exchange with Greer in a cantina, that persona is quickly dispensed with and he becomes a traditional macho anti-intellectual hero in an adventure movie. And when the duo in danger hide a few feet away from Howard and van Eyck, I thought of a similar moment in Fritz Lang's "An American Guerrilla in the Philippines," when Tom Ewell is under a log a few feet from a Japanese patrol. His feet are bare, and they rest on an ant hill. It's a wrenching scene and there's nothing like it in this film from Ray Bolton. All it would have required is a moment's creative thought. Some goofs are obvious too. Widmark manages to escape from a building by killing an armed man with a trick. He leaps over the body and rushes off without bothering to pick up the rifle and arm himself.
That lack of originality doesn't spoil the movie. It's engaging at first. Then it becomes tense -- and the tension lasts until the end. Widmark is almost always likable, even as the heavy, and Greer exudes class. You know, though, if Howard and van Eyck were nowhere near civilization, where did they get all their booze from?