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Saturday, December 4, 2021

THE WINGS OF THE HAWK (1953)

Joseph Losey, Douglas Sirk, Leo McCarey, George Stevens, Budd Boetticher, André de Toth, Hugo Fregonese, Jean Negulesco, Raoul Walsh: a roll-call of great (or near-great) directors linked 1951-to-1955 by, of all people, Van Heflin, after he ankled at M-G-M.  (Naturally, McCarey, the biggest name in the bunch, responsible for the one real stinker.*)  Here, originally in 3D (note the pistol lowered right in your face during a prison escape), Boetticher has Heflin as an American gold prospector in Mexico during the 1910 Revolution, interrupted on one side by vicious Government Federales and on the other by uncoordinated Revolutionary Banditos.  Taken into custody by one, and then by the other, he soon falls for Julia Adams, a distractingly Beverly Hills looking Revolutionista.  Back-and-forth fighting and alliances reasonably well worked out and economically staged by Boetticher, not shy exploding ordnance.  (That man could load a lot of info into tight spaces, here 81".)  Helped by a lot of Mexican supporting actors, look for debuting Pedro Gonzales who’d go on to play scores of comic relief Mexican sidekicks, but rarely with better material, he's a delight.  The film ultimately comes up a bit shy in most departments, but with sympathies in the right places.  One scene with scores of locals massacred by the Federales reaching even a bit farther.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: *The find in the bunch, Fregonese’s THE RAID/’53.    https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2021/07/the-raid-1954.html

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