The latest entry from the restoration experts at the 3-D Film Archive is Wings of the Hawk. Universal-International’s second 3-D release was also its first ‘widescreen’ movie: studios were adopted the 1:85 aspect ratio very soon after Fox’s game-changing launch of CinemaScope.
At this time Universal devoted a big slice of its production schedule to color adventures, either westerns or costume pictures. They varied somewhat in budget — if Gregory Peck was brought in for a show like The World in His Arms, the price tag would go up.
The economy-conscious studio kept its small pool of contract players very busy. Hopefuls Tony Curtis, Jeff Chandler and Rock Hudson would all play colonial soldiers and Arabian Nights heroes; Hudson was an Indian brave at least twice. As it was filmed in the new and trendy 3-D format Wings of the Hawk also merited the hiring of an outside star, ex-MGM contractee Van Heflin. House director Budd Boetticher took the assignment. Two years before he had been lauded for the superb Bullfighter and the Lady, yet he didn’t mind bread ‘n’ butter studio assignments like Red Ball Express.
Wings of the Hawk is so generic an action thriller, ot could have been rewritten from a story about an uprising in the Sudan, or a conflict in a fantasy kingdom. The setting is Mexico but the locations don’t range much farther than Simi Valley. We’re fairly certain that we’re seeing frequently-used Universal backlot sites. One setup with low buildings in the foreground, and a path leading up a hill beyond, seems identical to the front of the gladiator school seen several years later in Spartacus.
And since this is a Budd Boetticher picture, it’s got great equestrian action. The horses are beautiful. Specially trained animals are used when they fall down — no trip wires or stumble pits.
Yankee miner Irish Gallagher (Van Heflin) has just tapped a good vein of gold when the local military ruler Coronel Paco Ruíz (George Dolenz) bring troops to seize his holdings. They slay Irish’s pal Marco (Mario Siletti), but Irish is rescued by the local revolutionaries, led by the firebrand Raquel Noriega (Julia Adams). Raquel is in charge due to the perceived cowardice of leader Arturo Torres (Rodolfo Acosta), her lover. Irish earns his freedom by taking a bullet out of Raquel’s shoulder. But events cause him to join up with the little band of rebels. The plan is to ambush Ruíz’s Federales with American guns purchased with gold from the confiscated mine. This will ensure that the bandit-revolutionary Pascual Orozco (Noah Beery Jr.) can capture Ciudad Juarez. By now an unofficial item, Irish and Raquel fight together. Loyal soldado Tomás (Pedro González González) fights even after his mother (Conchita Reyes) is put before a firing squad. Raquel must contend with the fact that her sister Elena (singer Abbe Lane) has become the consort of the haughty Coronel Ruíz.
Wings of the Hawk takes place in 1911, and its action of bringing wagonloads of arms from the U.S. feels like a pre-echo of Sam Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch made sixteen years later. Like most of Universal’s early ’50s adventure thrillers the action scenes have a make-do quality. Mexico is a few backlot buildings and the featureless hills of the Corriganville movie ranch. The battles are really skirmishes; the biggest scenes show perhaps forty costumed Federales, albeit mounted on really handsome horses. The rebel camp is small-scale but not tiny and the Colonel’s headquarters is just a couple of rooms. There’s action in every reel, mostly chases, a couple of fistfights, etc. The final battle uses dynamite explosions to generate some scale, and add some dynamic 3-D action.
Perhaps the original book had a reference to ‘wings of the hawk’ but the phrase is never heard in the finished film. The Federales make use of a new .30 caliber machine gun — which supposedly made its combat debut in U.S. Army campaigns on the Mexican border. The movie Villa Rides! (1968) showed airplanes in use in the revolution, but it was set a few years later. The Wild Bunch is supposed to take place in 1913, when airplanes are still little more than a rumor in the remote Southwest. Automobiles are still a rarity.
The capable Van Heflin gamely applies himself to the half-dimensional Irish Gallagher, taking a personal role in all but the most dangerous action scenes. We love Julia (Julie) Adams, but it’s something of a stretch to accept her as a feisty Mexican fighter. Adams’ slight accent soon disappears altogether; the ethnic actors backing her up seemingly mute their own accents so as not to make her stick out. Mexican star Rodolfo Acosta first played for Boetticher in Bullfighter and the Lady and continued for him as a general in Horizons West (great title, so-so movie). Acosta was mostly relegated to playing Indians and soldiers in his Hollywood pictures. You might remember him from How the West Was Won, as one of Eli Wallach’s train-robbing cronies. Shot by surprise, Acosta’s has one big dialogue line: “It’s Rawlins! Arrgh!”
George Dolenz’s main villain is pretty colorless… but he is indeed the father of future Monkee, Mickey Dolenz. Veteran actor Noah Beery Jr. — yes, from The Rockford Files — has one scene as a strictly B-movie Mexican bandit. He avoids ridicule by playing it low-key … not too heavy on the Wallace Beery histrionics. Former silent matinee idol Antonio Moreno (Creature from the Black Lagoon, The Searchers) pops up in a couple of scenes as a priest who aids the rebels.
Standing out in the predictable ensemble is Pedro González González’s slightly comic good-guy, Tomás. → According to the IMDB it’s GG’s first feature film, and he handles the light comedy side-kick chores with style and charm, even performing some amusing Mexican dance moves in a cantina scene. The featured cantina dancer is Rosa Turich. Reportedly fifty years old, she looks half that age. She made appearances in scores of movies, usually un-billed.
González won some respectable parts in John Wayne movies but his appearances became limited to condescending bits — over-excitable little guys that pop up to nervously babble a high-pitched ¡Ai Chihuahua! or two. Pedro was not the inspiration for Warner Bros’ cartoon character Speedy Gonzales but he is listed as providing voices for a couple of the cartoons. Along with Bill Dana’s ‘José Jiménez, Speedy Gonzales is now considered an ethnic embarrassment, and effectively canceled from the airwaves. Pedro and his brother José usually played positive characters yet are associated with the same stereotyping.
In Wings González saves the day once or twice and isn’t asked to lay down a Gunga Din– like sacrifice. The role feels like a step forward.
Sexy Abbe Lane was the fourth wife of Xavier Cugat (between Lorraine Allen and Charo) and is much better known as a band singer. She gets special billing for a part that doesn’t generate much energy. The finish is so rushed that Abbe’s character isn’t even given a parting shot.
Budd Boetticher doesn’t overload Wings of the Hawk with 3-D effects. Some furniture is tossed at the camera, as are a couple of rocks hurled by an explosion. The best 3-D shot is an up-angle close-up of a pistol being lowered on a string into Irish’s jail cell. Boetticher and the stunt specialists found okay angles for the fight scenes, but all the horse action is better than normal — is it fair to assume that Budd is responsible for the quality scenes of horses galloping and climbing steep paths?
For a somewhat tame, juvenile program picture Wings is not bad. Just don’t expect anything deep, like Van Heflin’s extraordinarily good The Raid, a Civil War spy-sabotage feature made a year later. What with the difficult role given Julia Adams, not a lot of romantic attraction is generated. She never looks natural in sombrero and bandoliers, and her reserve and poise are more fitting for a debutante. Still, Ms. Adams gives the role its due. When Raquel is shot through the shoulder in the first scene, she suffers almost zero physical effect. It must have been Raquel’s sorority training.
