Les pillards de Mexico

Glenn Ford,(Al Colby),"The Big Heat",'53 played an insurance man down on his luck in Mexico and meets up with Patricia Medina,(Anna Luz),"The Beast of Hollow Mountain",'56, who buys Al Colby a drink and makes sexual advances toward him and manages to involve him with a man who gives Al a package to deliver for $1,000 and that makes Al very happy, because he is completely broke. Diana Lynn,(Julie Barnes),"Track of the Cat",'54, plays the role of a sexy blond who is drunk most of the time and is always trying to get Al Colby into bed with her. It seems that Al Colby has some secrets that concern a very wealthy treasure and everyone either wants to kill him or go in business with him. Glenn Ford was at the top of his career and gave an outstanding performance.

"Plunder of the Sun" is a very good and interesting story of adventure, mystery, crime and drama. It's an adaptation of a 1949 novel of the same title by David Dodge. That was set in Peru and the film adaptation is set in Mexico. Many in the fine cast contribute to the intrigue of the story.

Glenn Ford is Al Colby, an American adventurer. Francis L. Sullivan plays Thomas Berrien, a collector of ancient artifacts. Patricia Medina plays his wife. Diana Lynn plays Julie Barnes, Sean McClory plays Jefferson, and Douglass Dumbrille plays the American Consul.

The movie was shot on location in Oaxaca, Mexico. And, it also has some excellent scenes of archaeological sites in the area. Places like the ruins of Monte Alban and others are in scenes of the film. So, it also provides a little education in ancient history and geography. All those who enjoy mysteries should like this film.

Too many wanna be's for my taste. In the first twenty minutes alone I counted three; Patricia Medina's Rita by way of Ava, Francis Sullivan's Sydney G, and S McClory's P Lorre. And then, as Snoop suggested below, there is Glenn Ford's I Don't Wanna Be as in I'm Phoning This One In. So before I could stick around for Diana Lynn's imitation (Mary Astor would be my guess) I bailed. Good location shooting, though, removes this John Farrow offering from the realm of utter crap.

Not much of David Dodge's novel remains in this film version, other than the names of some of the characters and the basic plot. American insurance investigator Al Colby is hired to smuggle a package out of Havana and into Oaxaca, Mexico. When the man who hired him is murdered aboard ship, Colby decides to find out what he is carrying and why it is worth killing for. Unscrupulous antiquities dealers, disgraced archaeologists, and desperate women all clash in a search for buried Zapotecan treasure. Glenn Ford is serviceable as Al Colby, but the plot is murky, the characters are under-developed, and the location is inexplicably changed from Peru to Mexico. Although it is long out-of-print, copies of the book are still relatively easy to find (unlike prints of this film, which is still tied up in Wayne estate litigation), and reading the book is a much better use of one's time.

David Dodge's novel is brought to the screen with Ford excellent as protagonist Al Colby. The script however, plays fast and loose with the novel, changing the locale from Peru to Mexico and now the search is on for Aztec artifacts instead of Incan. All things considered, this is a tightly directed and well acted tale. It has not been available for viewing as it seems to be tied up in litigation along with "Island in the Sky"(1953) and "The High and the Mighty"(1954)as the Wayne Family battles Warner Brothers and we are the losers.