Go into a mountain poor, come out rich. Rian Mitchell has spent years chasing a fortune and now in the Andes, he may have found a fabled emerald mine of the Conquistadors. He may also have found something more precious: the love of coffee plantation owner Catherine Knowland - if his greed doesn't drive her from him. Stewart Granger and Grace Kelly headline a tale of heroics and romance filmed in awesome widescreen CinemaScope in scenic locales of Colombia. Andrew Marton, who co-directed Granger's King Solomon's Mines and most famously helmed (along with Yakima Canutt) the chariot race in Ben-Hur, brings his knowing hand to the film's action. Floods, gunfights, a cave-in, a mountain avalanche - adventure burns with a Green Fire.
December 25, 1954
'Green Fire' Is Yule Bill at Mayfair
By BOSLEY CROWTHER
IN "Green Fire," which Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer delivered to the Mayfair yesterday to add an appropriate spot of color to the holiday cinema fare, the boys have got themselves a lurid and generally engrossing adventure film, all about emerald mining in Colombia—and also about a fellow and a girl. In CinemaScope and Eastman color, it looks particularly good.
The fellow, played by Stewart Granger, is a tough mining engineer who is bent upon snatching those beautiful emeralds from the heart of a mountain, and will let nothing interfere. And the girl, played by lovely Grace Kelly, is the owner of a coffee plantation not too far away. She is bent upon staying in the coffee business, and likewise means to let nothing interfere.
Thus, when these two become affectionate, in the usual leisurely and charming way, it is but the conventional prelude to the inevitable clash of wills—the irresistible force meeting the immovable object. Is it to be emeralds or coffee with these uncompromising two? Or is it to be no deal between them? A rhetorical question, of course.
In the working out of a solution, Ivan Goff and Ben Roberts, who wrote the script, have built up enough situations to keep the show moving briskly for an hour and a half. There are native game competitions, skirmishes with bandits, mine cave-ins and eventually the dynamiting of a mountain to fill the CinemaScope screen.
And with much of the outdoor action shot in Colombia, in the river villages and hills, the appearance of the film is both exotic and dramatic in the best back-country style.
Among the more attractive of the humans are Mr. Granger and Miss Kelly, who perform with agreeable romantic enthusiasm and an average measure of credibility. Paul Douglas, as a gent who switches allegiance from one to the other in midfilm, throws the wisecracks with absolute assurance and adds to the pace of living all around. Murvyn Vye, as a bandit leader, and Robert Tafur, as a Jesuit priest, inject the appropriate abrasives that help to keep the folks alert.
The only question one might raise at present has to do with the values involved. At today's prices, coffee and emeralds are just about equally dear.
GREEN FIRE, screen play by Ivan Goff and Ben Roberts; directed by Andrew Marton; produced by Armand Deutsch; for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. At the Mayfair.
Rian X. Mitchell . . . . . Stewart Granger
Catherine Knowland . . . . . Grace Kelly
Vic Leonard . . . . . Paul Douglas
Donald Knowland . . . . . John Ericson
El Moro . . . . . Murvyn Vye
Manuel . . . . . Jose Torvay
Father Ripero . . . . . Robert Tafur
Jose . . . . . Joe Dominguez
Officer Perez . . . . . Nacho Galindo
Dolores . . . . . Charlita
Hernandez . . . . . Natividad Vacio
Antonio . . . . . Rico Alaniz
Roberto . . . . . Paul Marion
Juan . . . . . Bobby Dominguez
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