You can see why you'd make it -the classic tale, Rita Hayworth starring, technicolor, the director and star of Gilda, and apparently the writer Virginia Van Upp had a go at the script. Even in 1947 Columbia surely would have known Glenn Ford was miscast - he has his moments to be fair, some nice intensity, he tries, but just feels too 20th Century.
In their defence it's not as though the studio had many other actors under contract who would've been better. Larry Parks? Willard Parker? Bill Holden?
You know who would've been good? Orson Welles. He could do that intensity stuff and he'd feel 19th century. Also a Brit star like James Mason or Stewart Granger but they hadn't head over yet.
Maybe this could have worked turned into a Western - I felt the same about Ford's stint in Four Men of the Apocalypse. Or a musical - Hayworth does a few dances but not enough.
Ron Randell is billed third but barely in the movie - what's that all about? Far bigger parts go to Victor Jory (Hayworth's villainous husband), Luther Adler (bandit), the colonel, the bullfighter... it's weird. What happened there?
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