GREEN FIRE
US, 1954, 100 minutes, Colour.
Stewart Granger, Grace Kelly, Paul Douglas, John Ericson.
Directed by Andrew Marton.
Green Fire is a routine adventure story set in Latin America. Stewart Granger is an adventurer who discovers emeralds. Grace Kelly is the daughter of a plantation owner. John Ericson is her brother. Paul Douglas is the usual heavy.
The film was very popular at the time, especially because of Grace Kelly. While she made only a few films, she had made an impact in High Noon and Mogambo as well as the Hitchcock films Dial M for Murder, To Catch a Thief, Rear Window. In 1954 she won an Oscar for her role as the dowdy housewife in The Country Girl. Other films include The Bridges at Toko- Ri, The Swan and her last film, High Society.
Stewart Granger was very popular at MGM Studios at the time in such films as King Solomon’s Mines, The Prisoner of Zenda, Young Bess, Scaramouche.
1. A good adventure film? How enjoyable an adventure film? How well did it use adventure conventions? How much audience acceptance of these conventions did It presuppose?
2. How important was the use of colour, Cinemascope, location photography, the background of emerald mining, South America - its rivers and mountains, the explosive climax?
3. What expectations as regards realism, exotic lands and work, fortunes, wealth, love etc., do audiences have for this kind of film?
4. How real are characters in such adventure stories? Or is it merely necessary for them to work within the conventions of the genre? Is this the case here? How successful were the characters within the conventions?
5. How strong a hero was Mitchell? The emerald background, the initial discovery, being hurt, Mitchell as an adventurer, the amount of violence in his life, his gambling, relationships with his partner, with women, the influence of Kathy, his capacity for work, his skill in mining, employing men, the result of setbacks, his ruthlessness, the decisions he had to make? Was this a conventional hero or something more?
6. How attractive a heroine was Kathy? Grace Kelly's style? An American in South America, her background, her capability, relationship and response to Mitchell, falling In love, the work for the coffee plantation, the decisions and the clash of feelings? More that a conventional heroine?
7. The importance of Vie Leonard? As Mitchell's partner, returning to America, being exploited by Mitchell, drunkenness, able to be tricked, yet decent? The amount of danger in his life? His rescuing Mitchell? Siding with Kathy?
8. The importance of Don in the film? In South America, the coffee, his wanting to prove himself, his death and its meaning?
9. The importance of the friar and his influence on Mitchell, on the men? A moral judgement on the issues of the film?
10. The portrayal of the men: their superstitions, desire for work, greed, the fight about the discovery of the emerald and the consequent disasters?
11. Were the bandits convincing? The atmosphere of menace and danger? The necessary clash for an adventure film?
12. How important was the background of mines, rivers, spectacular action, the divergence of the river at the end?
13. How real does South America seem for film audiences?
14. The film was made in the 'fifties. Would it be made in this way now?
