It's a colorful pageant type film with some style and little substance. Not as classic in my opinion as the other Samuel Shellabarger book that was made into a Tyrone Power film, "Prince of Foxes". Both of these films were made by Henry King, a director who I find to be generally watchable but not particularly compelling. "Foxes" was done in color and the locations are a bit more impressive in my opinion, and perhaps just has a story and character that appeal to me more. In this film Power is playing a character with no real moral ambivalence, not even moments where the audience might make the mistake of thinking that he does. So he's kind of a dull character, but Power is a compelling enough actor to make it very watchable nonetheless.
It's fun to see Cesar Romero as Cortez, riding around on impressive horses with shining armor and making big speeches. It's very odd to see Lee J. Cobb in tights, in his early scenes when he's befriending Power's character. But of course he's also such a good actor and knows how to use the screen so well that he's able to make a fairly standard character seem unpredictable. Jean Peters was solid in one of those roles where we're supposed to think that a really pretty girl is somehow practically un-noticed by most.
I like the movie but I think that the script was probably dumbed down a bit compared to the book. You can't lose with Tyrone Power anchoring the entire film, but you wish that they could have made a slightly better picture to match his talents, coming right off his masterpiece in "Nightmare Alley" the same year.
It's fun to see Cesar Romero as Cortez, riding around on impressive horses with shining armor and making big speeches. It's very odd to see Lee J. Cobb in tights, in his early scenes when he's befriending Power's character. But of course he's also such a good actor and knows how to use the screen so well that he's able to make a fairly standard character seem unpredictable. Jean Peters was solid in one of those roles where we're supposed to think that a really pretty girl is somehow practically un-noticed by most.
I like the movie but I think that the script was probably dumbed down a bit compared to the book. You can't lose with Tyrone Power anchoring the entire film, but you wish that they could have made a slightly better picture to match his talents, coming right off his masterpiece in "Nightmare Alley" the same year.