Green Fire

Grace didn't make many movies, she should have made one less! Silly adventure isn't wretched nor is it very good. Her only film to lose money on original release.

The movie is a standard jungle picture typical of the fifties made better then it should be by the cast. Grace and Stewart, who most definitely did not hit it off during filming-Grace found him boorish and puffed up, handle what little romance there is well enough. However the best performance as was often the case comes from Paul Douglas. Even though he didn't have leading man looks he had a bruised dignity that softened his blustering demeanor and made him a sympathetic character.

Some nice location photography and a decent if preposterous climax but this is without question the worst picture Grace Kelly made during her brief Hollywood heyday.

Before writing this review I looked up emeralds in Wikipedia and found that Paul Douglas was wrong when he said during the film that emeralds are only found in two places, Colombia and the Soviet Union, specifically Siberia. They are found in all kinds of places including some areas of the USA. Would that were the only thing wrong with this film.

Still Colombia is the area best known for it and until recently when you thought of Colombia you thought of emeralds and coffee. Now sad to say you think drug cartel. But back in 1954 it was emeralds that was on the minds of adventurers Stewart Granger and Paul Douglas. They've discovered an abandoned mine that they think was abandoned prematurely. And the only place to get laborers is from the nearby coffee plantation owned by brother and sister Grace Kelly and John Ericson.

Young Ericson is hot to trot to help Granger and Douglas, Kelly less so. But she does have an eye for Granger even with both men pursuing her.

And of course there's bandit chief Murvyn Vye who actually does own the land where the emeralds might be found. But he'd just as soon let others do the back breaking work of digging them out.

Now with all the information I've given I think 99% of viewers would see where this one is going. In fact that's Green Fire's main problem, it's your basic routine action/adventure flick on which MGM decided to spend a ton of money. For one thing it's best asset is the color location cinematography in the Colombian jungles. After King Solomon's Mines and The African Queen, American audiences would not accept back lot jungles any longer. Note that Stewart Granger was the star of King Solomon's Mines and he got first crack at every jungle picture that came along after that.

Green Fire is hardly as good as King Solomon's Mines. Grace Kelly seemed pretty distant in this film, looking like she was a Philadelphia débutante rather than a coffee plantation owner. She did a flock of good films this year, Rear Window, The Bridges At Toko-Ri and her Oscar winner The Country Girl in 1954. Green Fire just isn't in the class of the others.

In short, admire the flora and fauna of Green Fire and the story is something you can live with.

The movie really is good enough for its genre. The story well written and paced, the characters well portrayed, especially by Granger and Douglas. Granger was a natural as the adventurous treasure hunting mining engineer , Douglas, solid and humane , played his long time partner and friend. Together, they fought the hardship of mining, the bandits, sometimes each other, and for the girl Kelly. Kelly was a bit out of place here. She though was very beautiful but somehow too civil and too dignified for the south American jungle background. Her romance with Granger lacked intensity and passion. Fortunately, the story and some actions provided enough intensity and excitement , made the movie quite enjoyable

Green Fire is a pretty good watch. Stewart Granger is at his handsome best and he and Kelly certainly present their characters as a couple with spark between them. Paul Douglas is a rock, as usual in his supporting role as the loyal partner to Grangers leading man. I was pleasantly surprised by Kelly's acting in this little film. She was better and less like an inexperienced young actress than I have seen her before. I liked the restrained quality in her performance. Oddly it was the exact opposite to this, in Grangers performance, which appealed to me. He was at the top of his form, physically lithe and handsome and at the top of his form as the stereotypical dashing leading man. He owned the part. I rate this film as at the top of its genre pile! It was enjoyable but not difficult, and full of eye candy for boys and girls. Great fun.

MGM adventure set in Colombia (and beautifully filmed there). Stewart Granger plays a somewhat hapless, but charming, down-on-his-luck mining engineer, hoping to make a big emerald strike. Paul Douglas plays his solid, more practical partner, who's about to quit the game and take a job in Canada, when he's persuaded by Granger to give it one last go.

Granger has an accident and ends up recuperating at a comfortable coffee plantation owned by lovely Grace Kelly and her brother, John Ericson. Granger and Grace fall for one another, but complications ensue, including conflicting ethics.

Yes, you've seen it all before, and despite top stars and first-class production values, as well as landslides, animal attacks, a villain called El Moro, and Granger with his shirt off, the picture still comes across as a bit of a potboiler.

On the plus side, Granger and Kelly are both more nonchalant and casual than usual. In a far cry from her Hitchcock outings, Grace even drives a Jeep, rides horseback, gets dirty and wet, and performs manual labor. All in Helen Rose designs.

If you don't take any of it very seriously, you'll probably enjoy "Green Fire." It's one of those movies that doesn't grip you right away, or even in the first hour. When movies were meant to be seen in theaters, filmmakers were free to set up the story slowly, because the audience wasn't going anywhere. They weren't going to change the channel. This picture sets everything up solidly, eventually leading to an exciting climax and satisfying conclusion.