The story is clever, the production value is all there, and the acting talent is present... but this film is poorly directed with a distracting and overblown music score. There are clear merits to this film and Mitchum gives his all to make his character solid ... but because of the weak direction, his Mexican accent is almost flawless in some scenes, but nonexistent in others. This goes back and forth for the duration of the film. Some of the Mexcian accents spoken by some actors are not only poorly executed, with dialogue that is stereotypical, as well. This distracts greatly from the story and production values here. The overblown soundtrack is about as bad as it gets. It makes me think Alex North was dying for attention and wanted his music to be heard over the action. The music has little to do with the mood of what is happening on screen. Music should enhance the drama... here the music fights for attention. Some of the worst arrangements I've heard. At times the music sounds festive and celebratory in scenes which are supposed to be ominous and frightening. Quite odd and a bit irritating. A remake should be considered because the story is worth telling.... but not this way.

This is a film for those who wish to understand the Mitchum mystique. I first saw this film with my father when Bill Kennedy was still on Channel Nine in Canada. It has something for everyone; even the dignified and yet realistic presence of Leroy 'Satchel Page' as Buffalo Soldier Tobe Sutton. It's about a tough guy who finds himself vulnerable at all the wrong times and reluctantly must depend on the care of others when he least expects it.Some men, like Clint Eastwood of the Mount Rushmore School and more famously, Marlon Brando, are great at understatement and know how to make it work for them. Mitchum, with his sleepy-eyed 'I'm just here to get my paycheck' attitude is at the top of this heap. He does his job, no more or less, but that is what makes him such a great working-class hero. Mitchum does his job, and every once in awhile, like Bettie Page or Ernest Hemingway, he will flash you a little something extra. No charge. It's on the house.I first saw this film in black and white and later in color. I was surprised to find my appreciation of it has grown over the years and it does not seem a bit dated. It's a simple story, really, with about the complexity of a good short story. The intriguing thing is I cannot tell you why exactly it has stuck in my mind with such fondness. That in itself suggests a touch of great artistry.Alex North conducts a rousing score that suggests the best of Mexican music. The cinematography by Floyd Crosby and Alex Phillips seems even more appealing in color than it was in black and white when I viewed it again with my cousin James Arthur. It's a man's movie with a bit less romance than Bogart's THE LEFT HAND OF GOD, but every time I see it the movie seems to be spot on in all the right places. There is nothing baroque about the presentation of events and the story never props itself up on anything bordering sensationalism. Like Mitchum's acting, it is what it is, take it or leave it.But I think you will take it in the end. This movie has one of the best resolutions I have ever seen in a Western. After the last gunfight, you KNOW this chaos and nonsense in violence has come to an end the way a baseball game concludes with a walk off home run and Mitchum giving a clinic on how to put a bullet through the impulse to break out into tears with classic manly disconnection as one of the great natural actors of our time. I have seen this ending several times over the years and like the ending to '2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY', cannot tell you exactly why it is so poignant to me. Besides the treat of seeing the Baseball legend Satchel Paige in a movie and Julie London being easy on the eyes, and a host of venerable Latinos being sympathetically cast in supporting roles or as villains with sneering machismo, there is Mitchum swaggering through with that 'I don't give a damn' disinterest finally giving a damn at the end without saying a word.

Mitchum reprises his Mexican gun-running, wife-stealing role from 'Bandido' (filmed just 3 years earlier) but this time as a pseudo-American-Mexican instead of just a mercenary American. The plot differs from Bandido in many ways, but the basic storyline is gun-running and wife-stealing, something at which Bob Mitchum apparently excels.Mitchum himself plays his usual rugged, sleep-eyed self who seems able to casually sweep women into his laconic vortex. However, Julie London is miscast as the leading lady. Her angular features, while similar to those of Ursula Theiss (Mitchum's leading lady in Bandido), are never attractively portrayed on the big screen, ad the sparks just don't fly between her and Mitchum. She does have a screen presence, but it was better suited for the small screen dramas.All in all, it's a decent movie I can recommend, maybe slightly better than Bandido. It deserves at least one viewing.

It occurred to me in the final minutes of the picture what the title might have been meant to represent - as Martin Brady (Robert Mitchum) makes his way across the Rio Grande from Mexico, his destination is the United States. Notwithstanding the dramatic desert scenery of his foster country, it's America where Brady will find some measure of freedom and liberty upon escaping the invisible noose of the Castro's. Fifty years removed from the original release of the picture, and without benefit of knowing to what extent politics played in the development of the story line, it's interesting to speculate about the film maker's use of the Castro name. It was in 1959 that Fidel Castro was sworn in as Prime Minister of Cuba after a colorful history of insurrection and guerrilla warfare. The movie's Castro had a brother as well, while today, Raul Castro replaces his ailing brother at the helm of his island country.Whether my speculation holds any water or not, one thing I'm not buying is Brady's horse being spooked by a tumbleweed. Was that the first time he ever saw one? I lost a little credibility in the story at about that point; Brady could have broken his leg or been laid up in a more effective manner, perhaps a bar room brawl or a gunfight. But it did set him up as a sympathetic character for the admiration of Helen Colton (Julie London) and as a foil in Mrs. Colton's relationship with her husband (Gary Merrill).The genuine surprise in the picture for me was the appearance of the legendary Satchel Paige as a soldier in Colton's black regiment. How cool was that? It was Paige's only movie credit, and makes me curious as to how he was selected for the role. So there's another bit of historical trivia I'll have to scope out.Generally speaking, I found the picture to hold my interest well enough beyond the tumbleweed incident. Mitchum was a bit too droll in his portrayal to suit me, but he's certainly competent enough here as in other films I've seen him. It hadn't occurred to me before how much he resembles another celebrity of the era, Dean Martin. It makes me want to go out and get a copy of "Five Card Stud" in which they both appeared.