Captain From Castile
by Henry King
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Cesar Romero, Jean Peters, John Sutton, Lee J. Cobb, Tyrone PowerDirector: Henry King
Brand: Twentieth Century Fox
Cinematographer: Arthur E. Arling
Cinematographer: Charles G. Clarke
Editor: Barbara McLean
Producer: Lamar Trotti
Writer: Lamar Trotti
Writer: Samuel Shellabarger
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); French (Dubbed), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; Spanish (Dubbed), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono
Format: Color, Full Screen, NTSC, Subtitled
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 140 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2007-05-01
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: 20th Century Fox
Movie Reviews of Captain From Castile
Movie Review: Two-thirds of a great movie
Summary: 3 Stars
Following exiled Spaniard Tyrone Power's adventures with Cortez and the Conquistadores in the New World after a jealous rival reports his family to the Inquisition and tortures his young sister to death, Captain From Castile is one of those deceptively lavish swashbucklers that promise more than it ever delivers. Despite a 141-minute running time, a huge budget, a good cast, great locations and one of the greatest scores ever written for any movie, it still feels like it's only just getting started when it suddenly ends - which it is, since the spectacular last half of Samuel Shellabarger's doorstop novel never made the screenplay, let alone the cameras. Yet even without that knowledge, the final sequence feels more like a rousing sequence to lead into an intermission and leave the audience hungry for more rather than a satisfying grand finale in itself. After such a buildup, ending the story before Cortez gets to meet Moctezuma, let alone steals and destroys his kingdom, is a terrible anticlimax, especially since the novel goes on to paint his battles in particularly vivid strokes. It's as if William Wyler decided to end Ben-Hur with his hero thinking it might be an idea to challenge his mortal enemy to a chariot race some day or ending a film about the Titanic long before the iceberg is even sighted.
Rather than sensitivity for the Aztec culture he destroyed, the reason seems to be more dictated more by finances than conscience: having spent a reputed $4.8m on a difficult Mexican shoot in many of the then still fairly inaccessible locations Cortez marched through, spending another $4m wasn't an attractive prospect, especially since both the censors and the Catholic Legion of Decency had made clear they found huge sections of the book unacceptable, necessitating heavy rewrites before it could go into production. As it was, the film failed to recoup its cost, though a more satisfying ending might have improved matters a bit.
Yet as much as the film disappoints on a first viewing, a second time around it's easier to see its strengths and enjoy it as a lavishly produced period melodrama. True, it misses the irony of the hero's road from vengeance to spiritual redemption being found on a purely mercenary quest for riches, but Cesar Romero's Cortez is never presented as anything other than a jovial pirate, pure and simple: the more the Aztecs try to bribe him to go home, the more he gleefully realizes they have to steal if he carries on. The Technicolor photography is certainly handsome and the location work pays off (even providing a real volcanic eruption in the background of the final scene to match one that happened during Cortez' march) even if most of the movie is just a long walk through Mexico with more intrigue than action. Best of all is Alfred Newman's incredible score and its rousing Conquest theme, truly music to conquer the world to that's so stirring that you'll want to give up the day job and conquer a third world country and enslave its population yourself.
The Region 1 NTSC disc has a glorious color transfer with a good selection of extras - audio commentary, featurette on Tyrone Power's Leading Ladies, stills and advertising gallery, original theatrical trailer and an isolated score track for Alfred Newman's superb score.
Summary of Captain From Castile
Forced to flee his home during the Spanish Inquisition, nobleman Pedro De Vargas escapes with a beautiful peasant girl and joins Cortz on his dangerous expedition to conquer Mexico, as the young couple fall deeply in love, Pedro's great courage brings his leader honor and glory with every challenge, even as an evil officer threatens the success of the entire expedition.Fox honcho Darryl F. Zanuck pulled out all the stops for this expensive 1947 film, which welcomed Tyrone Power back to the world of costume adventures after his World War II service. Power plays Pedro de Vargas, victim of the Spanish Inquisition, who flees to the New World under the flag of the Cortez expedition. This kind of story would have been made in the studio before the war, but the postwar craze for location shooting gives the movie a real visual sweep (it also ballooned the budget to a reported $4.6 million, a huge tab for the era). The Mexican locations are excellent throughout, with the real coup in final section, shot under the shadow (sometimes literally) of an actual erupting volcano--a marvelous real-life effect that director Henry King uses as often as possible.
King worked often with Power, and their shared foursquare approach makes the film satisfying, if rarely exhilarating. The moral complexities of a foreign invasion are dealt with only obliquely, and mostly in Vargas's conversations with an Indian native (nice small role for future Tonto, Jay Silverheels). Romance comes from a Spanish peasant girl who tags along for the journey; she's played, in her film debut, by Jean Peters, who would eventually marry Howard Hughes. Peters had won a beauty contest and a trip to Hollywood, and promptly landed the lead in Captain from Castile; in some shots she's an absolute knockout, in others a plain-faced girl out of her depth. Filling in the story are John Sutton's ice-cold villain, Lee J. Cobb's lusty treasure-seeker, and Cesar Romero's bearded, grandiose Cortez (one of the juiciest roles in Romero's long career). Tyrone Power had completed two offbeat projects at Fox after returning from WWII, The Razor's Edge and Nightmare Alley, so strapping on the doublet and hose was a way of paying back Zanuck. It worked--the movie was a hit--even if Power sometimes chafed at the doublet. --Robert Horton
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