A laughably bad action romance film set in Venezuela and dealing with oil fighters, one of umpteen films starring rugged Cornel Wilde and blonde Jean Wallace, the anti-vixen femme fatale, one of half a dozen or so films the married couple appeared in together. The real femme fatale here is Abbe Lane whom Wilde refers to as a tramp, once engaged to Wilde but now involved with his wealthy friend Francis Lederer. Young Michael Landon (bizarrely cast as a Venezuelan) is Lederer's right hand man who has the goods on Lane yet has a panic attack while dealing with an oil rig fire that leads to tragedy.
This is the "Gone With the Wind" of oil rig fire movies, just as "Underwater" was the "GWTW" of pearl diving films, completely over the top and often unintentionally funny. Wallace's character, supposedly a best-selling romance advice book writer, is a completely annoying character, clinging and a bit whiny, reminding me of "My Friend Irma's" Marie Wilson, but with brains. The film is over produced on many levels, with its emotional characters as overly dramatic as the musical score that accompanies the film. A solo guitar version of "Ave Maria" had me laughing unintentionally. It's easy to see why the author of the novel, Stirling Silliphant, referred to this as a piece of garbage. Hopefully he was happier with the other version of that, "Hellfighters", starring John Wayne.
This is the "Gone With the Wind" of oil rig fire movies, just as "Underwater" was the "GWTW" of pearl diving films, completely over the top and often unintentionally funny. Wallace's character, supposedly a best-selling romance advice book writer, is a completely annoying character, clinging and a bit whiny, reminding me of "My Friend Irma's" Marie Wilson, but with brains. The film is over produced on many levels, with its emotional characters as overly dramatic as the musical score that accompanies the film. A solo guitar version of "Ave Maria" had me laughing unintentionally. It's easy to see why the author of the novel, Stirling Silliphant, referred to this as a piece of garbage. Hopefully he was happier with the other version of that, "Hellfighters", starring John Wayne.