The White Orchid (USA-Mexico, 1954) 77 min color DIR-PROD: Reginald Le Borg. SCR: David Duncan, Reginald Le Borg. MUSIC: Antonio Díaz Conde. DOP: Enrique Wallace, Gilbert Warrenton. CAST: William Lundigan, Peggie Castle, Armando Silvestre, Rosenda Monteros. (United Artists)
When archaeologist Robert Burton (William Lundigan) teams with photographer Kathryn Williams (Peggie Castle) to check out some Mayan ruins, a love triangle forms when romance burgeons between Kathryn and their Mexican guide, Juan Cervantes (Armando Silvestre- a familiar name to those who watched the Mexican genre films that K. Gordon Murray had imported and dubbed for North American audiences). This cheap melodrama is interesting for its interracial romance, unusual for the 1950s. The excellent colour location footage of Mexico lends some authenticity to this programmer (released by United Artists), but these scenes clash badly with the in-studio stuff. (Love that studio echo during the sandstorm.) This is virtually a one-man show for director-producer and co-screenwriter Reginald Le Borg, who lent some nice atmosphere a decade earlier on Universal’s Inner Sanctum series, and The Mummy’s Ghost, but his work here is rather pedestrian. At least this artifact is a showcase for starlet Peggie Castle- she even gets to speak much (untranslated) Mexican. While perhaps under-remembered today, as she sadly passed away in 1973 at the too-young age of 45, she starred in the 1960s series Lawman and in quite a few 1950s movies, including the 1952 red scare relic Invasion U.S.A., the 1957 “giant locusts” classic Beginning of the End, plus two 1953 noirs, I, The Jury and 99 River Street. This is the most accessible of her work, if because it is now in the public domain. My review copy was from Madacy’s Hollywood Classics VHS label, where the box proclaims it to be recorded in “high quality EP mode”… basically meaning that the picture is sharp, but there is a tracking problem all the way through.
Originally printed in Vol. #1, Issue #5, 2002.