A Mestiça do Mississipi

This old movie is so stereotyped predictable, and one scene in this movie is so inevitable to be seen:

She slapped his face angrily>then turned around>then the man she slapped suddenly grabbed her shoulder and turned her around>then forcefully kissed her>then she immediately gave in and kissed him back wholeheartedly.

>At the same time, the romantic music played on to synchronize the scene.

This format had been and has been used thousand times in almost every movies churned out from the Hollywood studios. And this film is no exception.

The other format used thousand times but not related to this particular movie is the scene when a man or a woman picked up the opposite gender and invited her or him to either one's home/apartment/room. They could hardly wait to close the door, and fiercely embraced each other, kissed, groped, or either the man or the woman wildly push the other one to the wall, did the same crazily wild hugging and kissing, the woman might jump onto the man, crossed her legs on the man's waist and kissed him blindly. The next format scene was they either took off their clothes or took off the other one's clothes, and meantime, still kissed non-stop. Then the man will hold the woman in his arms and awkwardly went toward the bedroom, or just pushed the woman onto the floor and started making love to her, while the agitated score played on.....

So what else is new?

It's Louisiana at the start of the 19th century and sugar is becoming an hugely valuable commodity. The traditional (largely French) plantation owners are trying to capitalise on this crop but so are the inventive pirates who wait til it's all harvested and bagged up, then they pinch it! The leader of these ruthless thieves is "Lili" (Patricia Medina) who, along with her dad "Jacques" (Ian Keith) and sidekick "Hugo" (Warren Stevens) has set her sights on the "Tulane" family. She owns the debt on their land and is determined to force them into ruin. Luckily, that family has an hunky son in "André" (Lex Barker) to whom she takes a shine. She agrees to swap the debt for his indentured servitude and so our adventure of crosses and double crosses begins in earnest. OK, so Barker is easy on the eye but not much of an actor and Medina spends much of the time here wishing she was Maureen O'Hara, but it's got a solid story of greed and revenge before the fairly obvious denouement delivers predictably. It's fairly swiftly paced, there's plenty of action - how often do you see a duel with machetes - and I actually quite enjoyed the hamminess of it all.

Well, I have had to go back on my word one more time with respect to non-Horror films by the director incorporated both as part of my centenary tribute to him and my Epic Easter marathon; given its riverboat/gambling/Old South backdrop, I had mentally classified this as more of a Western but, looking at stills from it and checking out its plot line, the sight of swordfights and the mention of piracy sure changed my mind! Anyway, the addition of the film to my schedule had its downside as well, as the gorgeous-looking (albeit TV-sourced) print I watched proved problematic – with the image getting scrambled every once in a while!

The film, then, was a mere 68 minutes in length: indeed, I must say that, had Castle not subsequently embarked upon his Horror career, his reputation would probably never have been made – despite his prolific pre-1958 output; that is not to say that it is bad, but it certainly had routine, journeyman, even cheap (produced by Sam Katzman: enough said!) written all over it – with this in mind, this early phase of his work has not been pursued by avid fans of his Horror efforts nearly enough.

This, again, co-stars Patricia Medina who unsurprisingly begins as an antagonist to hero Lex Barker, only to eventually reform (she is the spirited daughter of the leader of a gang of raiders stealing the sugar from various plantations, one of which is owned by Barker's father John Dehner) and fall for him; interestingly, when the old man is threatened with bankruptcy and a spell in debtors' prison, Barker offers his services as a personal slave to Medina…but also contrives to challenge her hot-headed foreman Warren Stevens (who prides himself on his lethal abilities with a rapier) to a duel which, if killed in, would effectively discharge Dehner from all obligations to Medina! Obviously, he survives (even wounding Stevens himself) – but the two men ultimately settle their score via another face-off, albeit fought by way of a machete!

The film is colourful and enjoyable, but also ordinary and forgettable; the cast helps, with Ian Keith (as Medina's brandy-loving father) relishing his roguish part, as opposed to the humourless villains he was often relegated to playing, a role here filled – quite ably, I might add – by Stevens. As for leading man Barker (who numbered actresses Lana Turner and Arlene Dahl among his five spouses!), he had a pretty continental and varied filmography – which saw him going from Hollywood Tarzan to German Winnetou (aka Old Shatterhand) and various other adventures and thrillers along the way, before prematurely expiring from a heart attack in 1973. Incidentally, thanks to this viewing, I have just added a quintet of the star's vehicles (3 of them Italian costumers!) to my collection...

Duel on the Mississippi (1955)

** (out of 4)

Plantation owner Andre Tulane (Lex Barker) finds himself in debt to the gambler Lili Scarlet (Patricia Medina) and the two are at each other's throats until one day when Tulane comes to the rescue and soon they are teaming up against some pirates.

William Castle's DUEL ON THE MISSISSIPPI is another film from the cult director that is mildly entertaining but at the same time it's pretty mediocre as far as its technical qualities. I say that because watching the film you couldn't help but give Castle a little credit since the film was well-made for the most part but there just wasn't enough here to bring the film alive and a lot of blame can go towards the screenplay.

The biggest issue I had with the screenplay is that there was a lot of plot and subplot but very little brains. In fact, the film was so watered down with various characters being introduced that it was very easy to lose track of what was going on. I never really cared about the battle between the two leads and there really wasn't anything happening in the story that kept my attention.

The cast, for the most part is good and Barker gets to show what he could do outside of Tarzan and the jungle. I thought he was pretty good for what the role required. The supporting players were good and that includes Medina. When all is said and done, DUEL ON THE MISSISSIPPI will appeal to fans of Castle but there's not enough here for most people.

I do not know why so many of the reviews of this film are negative. It is a thoroughly enjoyable film with lots of action. There are so few films whose stories are set in the immediate post-Louisiana Purchase period. The real history behind the story is fairly accurate and, despite some movie-serial tropes, it is well written. I was pleasantly surprised to see the iconic John Dehner affect a Franco-American accent, which would have been the norm for a second generation, Louisiana plantation owner. It also fits that his son, ably played by the handsome and dashing Lex Barker, would have no trace of the same accent, because by that time, English was becoming the norm in New Orleans post Louisiana Purchase. The weapons are accurate to the period, as is the idea that sugar was a rising commodity that Cajun Bayou-Raiders would steal. As in most of the Antebellum South, only a small few wealthy plantation owners would own all the land and slaves, while the rest of the citizenry had to survive as best they could. Now, was the movie a bit unrealistic and trite? Yes, but it is not a documentary! It is a good escapist film that has conflict, swordfights, romance, and light comedy. All the actors were wonderful in their roles, particularly. Ian Keith, who chews up the scenery and steals every scene he is in. Then there is the beautiful, copper-haired Patricia Medina as the apropos named Lili Scarlet. She brings a modern-day, feminist ideal of a woman-in-charge, good at business as well as skilled in wily, feminine charm. I enjoyed this film very much and think you will too. Just do not watch it expecting a Western film or a Documentary, just watch it with popcorn and enjoy.