Saturday, July 4, 2009

Beyond All Limits (1959)

Sutton Pictures
Directed by Roberto Gavaldon
My rating: 2.5 stars out of 4
IMDb Wikipedia
(DVD, VCI Entertainment)

Good location photography and atmosphere in a small Mexican fishing village highlight this otherwise routine melodrama about two men, a woman and a boy. Cinematography is by the great Gabriel Figueroa, whom Bunuel utilized in Simon of the Desert and The Exterminating Angel, as well as John Huston in the incredible The Night of the Iguana just a few years later in 1964. The VCI DVD release has some minor complaints: this is the English dubbed version, and the aspect ratio is perhaps a bit too wide (1.78 vs IMDb list of 1.37). Neither flaw detracted me from enjoying the film, as the dubbed version was done with original actors and the framing did not seem to suffer from the extra matting. The Spanish version (Flor de Mayo) would have been preferred, in which Jack Palance supposedly speaks in Spanish. He is reasonably subdued in this performance, though does have a knack for taking his shirt off whenever given the chance. Maria Felix does not do the same.

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