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The rugged subgenre reaches back to Douglas Fairbanks, though a nearer precedent is Wellman's Robin Hood of El Dorado. "The pampas of my free youth," as Nabokov would have it, is now "fenced and cultivated," to the chagrin of the Argentine cowboy (Rory Calhoun). A lethal duel lands him in jail, the ranch heir (Hugh Marlowe) commutes his sentence into military service. "A student of history," the major (Richard Boone) sees in the stubborn prisoner a descendant of Gen. San Martín: "I have no moral objection to killing, which after all is my trade, but it too should be a matter of discipline." Deserter in the wilderness, outlaw leader in the mountains, a hunted man with aristocratic lass (Gene Tierney) in tow. "He's a fool but he's very gaucho." Jacques Tourneur's Technicolor Latin Western, a laconic elegy brimming with mysterious beauty. The revolutionary moniker is a corpse's, "Valverde," the hero is perched on a rock on the margins of his camp, gazing at the gelid Andes while holding his beloved's pendant. (A melancholy flute note expires with the dissolve to a bustling street in the town below.) Horizontal lines across grassy plains contrast with the indelible vertical of Calhoun standing on his horse, a broken guitar states the death of the wry troubadour (Everett Sloane). "The day of the individual leader is gone. We're a nation now and we must learn new ways." The padre demands a confession before he can marry the runaway couple, Tierney rests her head against the stucco wall and wakes up to a row of soldiers riding in the distance. (Expressive landscapes aside, Tourneur's most uncanny effect finds the heroine running through a maze of cathedral portals.) "You can't build your freedom on the ruins of other people's lives." Vidor moves the dilemma north for Man Without a Star. With Enrique Chaico, Jorge Villoldo, and Lidia Campos.
--- Fernando F. Croce |