5/10
Trouble and romance for Van Heflin in revolutionary Mexico
10 March 2014
Wings Of The Hawk is set down in revolutionary Mexico during the teen decade of the last century and casts Van Heflin as an expatriate American mine owner who has his mine appropriated by Porfirio Diaz's local provincial administrator George Dolenz. That doesn't turn Heflin into a revolutionary sympathizer just yet. But when he saves Julie Adams from a gunshot wound with a little doctoring he's convinced of the rightness of their cause. It also helps that Julie fills those riding pants out real nice.

Romantically the problem for Heflin is Rudolfo Acosta who already has a claim on Adams. He's part of the revolutionary band, but has grown over cautious of late.

Abbe Lane plays Adams's sister and Dolenz's mistress. More should have been made of that situation than it was. It might very well have been left on Universal's cutting room floor. Of course we should have also seen more of Abbe Lane on general principles.

Budd Boetticher directed Wings Of The Hawk and it certainly isn't up to the standard of the films he did with Randolph Scott. It's a routine action/adventure film, nothing more. Especially with Viva Zapata coming out the year before, a really great film about the same period.
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