California Conquest

Cornel Wilde does a Mexican accent. He does a really bad Mexican accent with an often wooden delivery. For me that trumps every other aspect of this movie, which is supposed to be about California in the 1840s and jockeying between Mexico, the U.S. England and Russia to control it, but seems to be about Wilde getting into sword fights, breaking into peoples' hotel rooms to rob them and wooing Teresa Wright.

It even makes Teresa Wright seem like a bad actress. She had been nominated for two Oscars a decade earlier and had won one, and was a wonderful actress, but her delivery, which was just right when speaking with Gary Cooper or Joseph Cotten, well, here it makes her seem as if she thinks that Cornel Wilde is slightly deaf or stupid.

There are other aspects of this movie one might consider, I suppose, but I find it impossible to concentrate on them enough to offer them for your consideration. Let's simply note that this movie was decent enough to keep me watching to the end and that's why it's not an absolute bomb. But it's not worth your time to look at it.