Untouched (Blu-ray Review)
- Review Date: Sep 17, 2024
- Format: Blu-ray Disc
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Director
Roberto GavaldónRelease Date(s)
1954 (July 23, 2024)Studio(s)
Producciones Calderón (Indicator/Powerhouse Films)- Film/Program Grade: B+
- Video Grade: A
- Audio Grade: A-
- Extras Grade: A
Review
Untouched (Sombra verde, or Green Shadow, 1954) is a pretty good Mexican-made jungle adventure/romantic melodrama, those two genres neatly but jarringly bifurcating the narrative. Those familiar with Mexican cinema only through its wrestling movies and Aztec mummy films will be pleasantly surprised by this high-quality production, as good as anything made concurrently in Hollywood. Ricardo Montalbán, a big star in 1940s Mexican cinema, spent the last half-dozen years under contract at MGM but, dissatisfied with the Latin stereotypes he was asked to play, returned to his home country in 1954, though soon after was back in the U.S. to work in television and on Broadway.
After the discovery of barbasco roots in the Mexican jungle that can be used in the production of cortisone, a pharmaceutical company dispatches scientist Federico Gascón (Montalbán) to survey the area and make preliminary agreements for its harvesting and transport. He arrives at the nearest city in the middle of its colorful, weekend-long festival and Gascón, too impatient to wait for a proper guide, hires Pedro González (Jorge Martínez de Hoyos), a poor but inexperienced peasant trying to support his large family.
As a result, the pair quickly get lost in the thick jungle, and Pedro is fatally bitten by a venomous snake. Walking in circles, Gascón eventually hears the sound of barking dogs, and makes his way to a rope bridge spanning a river near a waterfall. He’s delighted to see a well-dressed man across the river, but he inexplicably cuts the bridge ropes with a machete, sending Gascón and his pack horses into the river, Gascón nearly drowning.
However, he’s saved by the beautiful Yáscara (Ariadne Welter), daughter of Don Ignacio Santos (Victor Parra), the strange man who tried to kill him earlier.
By 1954, jungle adventure movies had ignominiously petered out as a viable Hollywood genre; the fresh approach taken in Untouched is a pleasant surprise. The locations are visually interesting, as is the class-driven relationship between Gascón and Pedro. There are some visually striking shots of Gascón navigating through the forest during a torrential rainstorm, past burning trees struck by lightning. Before succumbing to that snake bite, Pedro makes Gascón promise not to leave him for the vultures, to give him a proper Christian burial. But when the soil proves impenetrable for its sea of tree roots, Gascón is ready to leave the body to rot, yet his conscience gets the better of him, and he laboriously loads it onto a packhorse, taking it with him. The startling scene of Santos cutting the rope bridge and sending Gascón and his horses downriver toward the waterfall is shocking; even more shocking is that the two horses really struggle in these violent waters, and the filmmakers appear to doom real animals sending them over the falls.
Once rescued by Yáscara, Untouched changes gears abruptly, the picture becoming something like a Latin Tempest/Forbidden Planet-type story of a sexually/emotionally inexperienced young woman kept beyond the reach of civilization by her mysterious, possessive father. This side of the film is also good, but less interesting, especially visually, compared to its first half. Ariadne Welter also is less believable than, say, Anne Francis in Forbidden Planet; Welter’s styled, very 1950s hair makes her appear less cloistered somehow.
But the resolution of the story is interesting with several surprises. Montalbán is excellent throughout, and the cinematography and use of locations is impressive.
Powerhouse Films’ Region-Free Blu-ray of Untouched is presented two ways, in its original 87-minute Spanish version, and an English-dubbed edition with English titles and inserts that runs about 90 seconds shorter. The Spanish version was restored in 4K (with its original black-and-white and 1.37:1 standard aspect ratio) by the UCLA Film & Television Archives. The English version uses seamless branching from this restoration, while the changes made for that version incorporate standard-def material. Both have DTS-HD Master Audio mono tracks, along with English and SDH support, respectively.
Supplements include Casting a Shadow (23 minutes), an interview with writer-filmmaker Roberto Fiesco about the film’s star; and Playing with Fire (17 minutes), an interview with Rafael Aviña abut the film’s director. Also included is an audio commentary by film historian David Wilt. A trailer and image gallery round out the disc extras.
For this review, we received a check disc only. The 44-page booklet packaged with the final release includes an essay by Camilla Baier, archival essays by Viviana García Besné and Elisa Lozano, a contemporary article on the making of the film, and full film credits.
Untouched isn’t a cinematic masterpiece but it’s a solid, engaging production, its unusualness most intriguing and worthwhile. Recommended.
- Stuart Galbraith IV