Long unseen due to legal complications, Plunder of the Sun is now available on DVD and recently popped up on TCM. It was worth the wait. Glenn Ford is excellent as usual as Al Colby, an American who succumbs to temptation and gets involved in the artifact smuggling trade in Latin America. For the princely sum of $1,000, he's hired by Berrien (Sydney Greenstreet stand in Francis Sullivan) to transport the Maguffin from Cuba to Mexico. Things get complicated when Berrien turns up dead, and Colby finds others on the trail of his valuable package. The film features outstanding cinematography by Jack Draper--whose atmospheric, carefully lit work is best known to baby boomers thanks to his work on horror films such as Curse of the Crying Woman and World of the Vampires--and magnificent location footage of the Oaxaca ruins. Also noteworthy is the supporting cast, which includes bleach blonde Irish thespian Sean McClory and the brilliant veteran character actor Charles Rooner, an unheralded talent whose performance as a dissipated doctor in 1947's La Perla remains a landmark of cinematic malevolence.
Review of Plunder of the Sun
