Sangue de Mestiço

I expect Russell was the Technicolor draw for this rather tame installment of passion in the desert. Her box-office was peaking as thousands of men fantasized over certain Amazonian endowments. Still, she's quite good as the conflicted-wife, breathing life into a sometimes slumping narrative.

Will she and Chandler stay together once they decide to get hitched. That's basically the plot-line, so get interested if you can. Trouble is he's also married to his job at the gold mine; plus, being the swarthy Chandler from a hundred previous Westerns, he's also half- Apache. But more difficult for them, she's a rich girl from the East with a snooty mother, so you get the culture clash idea.

Duryea as the dipso doctor looks like he's having fun. But you do have to believe that somehow he handles the booze bottle with one hand and his patients with the other. Seems like a real stretch to me. Then too, there's the shapely Corday in a tacked-on role. Somehow she manages a fashion wardrobe on a nurse's salary. Oh well, she does have to carve out a glamour spot from the formidable Russell.

Not much really happens in the 90-minutes. But there is a lot of eye candy, especially the bright colors that show up like neons against the desert backdrop. Otherwise, except for the attractive stars, this desert soap opera is pretty much forgettable.