Passion

In Hollywood, you had the collaboration - partnership - between Budd Boetticher and Harry Joe Brown for a western films series starring Randolph Scott, and besides you also had a partnership between Allan Dwann and producer Benedict Bogeaus for a series of adventures films, westerns and even science fiction, around ten. All good little effective features, fast paced, with plenty of suspense and professional directing and acting. This one is gritty, full of action, one of the best of the Dwann - Bogeaus material. A taut revenge scheme, with at long last a co starring between Yvonne De Carlo and Cornel Wilde. At long last. A perfect delicious combination.

Maybe I had been spoiled a fortnight ago by the 'surprising' excellence of Dwan's SILVER LODE (1954), or perhaps I had my mind on other things while it was playing (I had just installed my brand new DVD recorder), or it is simply that the film needed a more compelling villain than Rodolfo Acosta; the fact remains that I was underwhelmed by this first viewing of PASSION. Not that it really has a reputation to uphold or anything but, retaining the services of much of the same crew as SILVER LODE (director Dwan, producer Benedict Bogeaus, cinematographer John Alton, composer Louis Forbes, art director Van Nest Polglase, bit-part actors Stuart Whitman and Robert Warwick, etc.), one can't help but expect similarly satisfying results. At least, the cast is quite good: Cornel Wilde, Yvonne De Carlo (in a dual role as Wilde's ladylike wife and her tomboyish twin sister!), Raymond Burr (as the Sheriff), Lon Chaney Jr. (as a drunken brute with a really loud cackle), John Qualen (as De Carlo's grandfather) and Anthony Caruso (as Burr's suspicious colleague). The film, set in Old California, follows a typical revenge story pattern which, unfortunately, seems not to have inspired Dwan much until the snowbound (or rather studio-bound) finale: in fact, Wilde does most of the killings – barring that of Chaney and Acosta – offscreen! Ultimately, PASSION emerges as a modestly pleasing and colorful diversion that falls short of achieving its potential…especially when judging the end result against similar contemporary Western fare about obsessive odysseys of revenge like Fritz Lang's RANCHO NOTORIOUS (1952) and Henry King's THE BRAVADOS (1958).

Ice cold snow western with Cornel Wilde and Yvonne De Carlo

A year before the bankruptcy, the then Hollywood major RKO RADIO PICTURES brought this unusual western to cinemas, which was set in California, Mexico in the 18th century.

Juan Obreon (ACADEMY AWARD nominee Cornel Wilde) experiences a surprise: the lovely Rosa Melo, who lives with her family on a hacienda, has a baby. His son! Of course Juan wants to marry his Rosa. Her rather tomboyish sister Tonya (Yvonne De Carlo in a double role) is also happy about this. The Melo family is in trouble with a large landowner who desperately wants the Melos' land back. One day a gang of murderers appears at the door and wipes out the entire Melo family - except for Tonya. Juan vows passionate revenge against the rascals. And to do this he goes into the eternal ice of the mountains to pursue Salvator Sandro (Rodolfo Acosta), the leader of the murder gang. Hot on their heels is Captain Rodriguez (Raymond Burr) as the guardian of the law...

Exciting western with an unusual setting and good actors! Although in color, but still in normal image format! Could RKO RADIO PICTURES no longer afford the newly emerged CinemaScope process? Stuart Whitman, who we know from THOSE MAGNIFICENT MEN IN THEIR FLYING MACHINES (1965), plays a very small role.

This film is a fairly quick paced western - they get to point of revenge fast within the first few minutes of the film - there is no drawn out waiting game. The character building happens during the "revenge" so there is none of character building before the good stuff starts like you see in so many of today's films.

This is a film I was introduced to via Lon Chaney Jr... watching his westerns. This one is a pretty good western with a great cast - a few big names. The story gets interesting right from the start - so it drew me in after about 10 minutes of viewing and I'm not a big fan of western movies.

7/10

Two Yvonnes (De Carlo) are better than one. Always. That's my opinion and I'm sticking to it. R.K.O. strikes gold in this dark western set somewhere in Northern California, sometime before the land was tamed by the U.S. government. The trio of Miss De Carlo (the fiery one), Cornel Wilde and Raymond Burr spend a good chunk of the running time of this movie chasing after the five desperadoes who have slaughtered one of the Yvonnes (the demure one) and her grandparents. Her son survives. Barely. In discovering the massacre at the farmhouse, Wilde's character catches a bad case of revenge and sets his sights on the perpetrators of those bad deeds. The police--Burr and Anthony Caruso--are ineffective. They always seem to show up a couple of heartbeats too late. The film does nothing to dissuade someone from uttering: "you can never find a cop when you need one." The scenery is fabulous. When Wilde marches off the lush greenery of the mountain's downslope and ascends the glacier in pursuit of the last bad guy, we know he has crossed the line into madness, He is out of control. Lawless. The ending is wrapped up in a satisfying manner. But the title (Passion) bothers me. I'm changing it to Obsession. And I'm sticking to it.