Grünes Feuer

The movie really is good enough for its genre. The story well written and paced, the characters well portrayed, especially by Granger and Douglas. Granger was a natural as the adventurous treasure hunting mining engineer , Douglas, solid and humane , played his long time partner and friend. Together, they fought the hardship of mining, the bandits, sometimes each other, and for the girl Kelly. Kelly was a bit out of place here. She though was very beautiful but somehow too civil and too dignified for the south American jungle background. Her romance with Granger lacked intensity and passion. Fortunately, the story and some actions provided enough intensity and excitement , made the movie quite enjoyable

Before writing this review I looked up emeralds in Wikipedia and found that Paul Douglas was wrong when he said during the film that emeralds are only found in two places, Colombia and the Soviet Union, specifically Siberia. They are found in all kinds of places including some areas of the USA. Would that were the only thing wrong with this film.

Still Colombia is the area best known for it and until recently when you thought of Colombia you thought of emeralds and coffee. Now sad to say you think drug cartel. But back in 1954 it was emeralds that was on the minds of adventurers Stewart Granger and Paul Douglas. They've discovered an abandoned mine that they think was abandoned prematurely. And the only place to get laborers is from the nearby coffee plantation owned by brother and sister Grace Kelly and John Ericson.

Young Ericson is hot to trot to help Granger and Douglas, Kelly less so. But she does have an eye for Granger even with both men pursuing her.

And of course there's bandit chief Murvyn Vye who actually does own the land where the emeralds might be found. But he'd just as soon let others do the back breaking work of digging them out.

Now with all the information I've given I think 99% of viewers would see where this one is going. In fact that's Green Fire's main problem, it's your basic routine action/adventure flick on which MGM decided to spend a ton of money. For one thing it's best asset is the color location cinematography in the Colombian jungles. After King Solomon's Mines and The African Queen, American audiences would not accept back lot jungles any longer. Note that Stewart Granger was the star of King Solomon's Mines and he got first crack at every jungle picture that came along after that.

Green Fire is hardly as good as King Solomon's Mines. Grace Kelly seemed pretty distant in this film, looking like she was a Philadelphia débutante rather than a coffee plantation owner. She did a flock of good films this year, Rear Window, The Bridges At Toko-Ri and her Oscar winner The Country Girl in 1954. Green Fire just isn't in the class of the others.

In short, admire the flora and fauna of Green Fire and the story is something you can live with.

MGM adventure set in Colombia (and beautifully filmed there). Stewart Granger plays a somewhat hapless, but charming, down-on-his-luck mining engineer, hoping to make a big emerald strike. Paul Douglas plays his solid, more practical partner, who's about to quit the game and take a job in Canada, when he's persuaded by Granger to give it one last go.

Granger has an accident and ends up recuperating at a comfortable coffee plantation owned by lovely Grace Kelly and her brother, John Ericson. Granger and Grace fall for one another, but complications ensue, including conflicting ethics.

Yes, you've seen it all before, and despite top stars and first-class production values, as well as landslides, animal attacks, a villain called El Moro, and Granger with his shirt off, the picture still comes across as a bit of a potboiler.

On the plus side, Granger and Kelly are both more nonchalant and casual than usual. In a far cry from her Hitchcock outings, Grace even drives a Jeep, rides horseback, gets dirty and wet, and performs manual labor. All in Helen Rose designs.

If you don't take any of it very seriously, you'll probably enjoy "Green Fire." It's one of those movies that doesn't grip you right away, or even in the first hour. When movies were meant to be seen in theaters, filmmakers were free to set up the story slowly, because the audience wasn't going anywhere. They weren't going to change the channel. This picture sets everything up solidly, eventually leading to an exciting climax and satisfying conclusion.

"Rian X. Mitchell" (Stewart Granger) is an ambitious mining entrepreneur who is looking in Columbia for a long-lost emerald mine built by the Conquistadors in 1687. He finds it but some bandits also find him and he is shot, robbed, pushed off a hillside and left for dead. He manages to stumble away but is then attacked by a jaguar. Fortunately, a village priest named "Father Ripero" (Robert Tafur) happens to be there and shoots the jaguar before it can kill Rian. Father Ripero then takes him to a nearby coffee plantation where "Catherine Knowland" (Grace Kelly) manages to tend his wounds. When he recovers he tells her that he has a partner, "Vic Leonard" (Paul Douglas) that he has to see right away but that he will return. Once he and his partner return to the coffee plantation they begin to work on the emerald mine which creates difficulties for all concerned. Anyway, having given the initial plot I will stop right here so as not to spoil the movie for anyone who wishes to view it. That said, while the entire cast performed in a decent manner the film seemed slow in some parts and lacked energy. Part of the problem may have been that the romance between Rian and Catherine lacked passion. Likewise, the action was solid but not very unique or original. In short, this is a decent movie with beautiful scenery and a capable cast. But with all it had going for it I believe it should have been better.

1954 was a VERY busy year for Grace Kelly. She starred in five films...one of which (THE COUNTRY GIRL) earned her a Best Actress Oscar and two of which were Hitchcock pictures. But not all these projects were great...as she also starred, inexplicably, in "Green Fire"...a rather pedestrian film where the worst thing about it is Kelly.

The story mostly is about Rian Mitchell (Stewart Granger), a scheming treasure hunter who seems to always be on the verge of a bit find....but fails. As for Catherine (Grace Kelly), she mostly seems to be there as window dressing throughout the film...very weird window dressing. Why weird? It's set in the Colombian jungle and there the very American and white bread Kelly appears...in her designer costumes and perfectly coiffed hair. It is simply ridiculous...and never really seems believable or necessary. As for the rest of the film, some is kinda interest...kinda.

Overall, not a terrible film (after all, it has some nice location shots) but a movie that SHOULD have been a lot more interesting given its budget and cast.