Captain from Castile

Captain from Castile is an action historical drama and swashbuckler film released by 20th Century Fox in 1947. Directed by Henry King, the Technicolor film starred Tyrone Power, Jean Peters, and Cesar Romero. Shot on location in Michoacán, Mexico, the film includes scenes of the Parícutin volcano, which was then erupting. Captain from Castile was the feature film debut of actress Jean Peters, who later married industrialist Howard Hughes, and of Mohawk actor Jay Silverheels, who later portrayed Tonto on the television series The Lone Ranger.

The film is an adaptation of the 1945 best-selling novel Captain From Castile, by Samuel Shellabarger. The film's story covers the first half of the historical epic, describing the protagonist's persecution at the hands of the Spanish Inquisiton and his escape to the New World to join Hernán Cortés in an expedition to conquer Mexico.

In his introduction to the 2002 re-issue of the novel, Pulitzer Prize-winning critic Jonathan Yardley described the merits of the film as:

"a faithful adaptation that had all the necessary ingredients: an all-star cast, breathtaking settings and photography, a stirring score, and enough swashbuckling action to keep the Three Musketeers busy for years."^[1]

Synopsis

In the spring of 1518, near Jaén, Spain, Pedro de Vargas (Tyrone Power), a Castilian caballero, helps a runaway Aztec slave, Coatl (Jay Silverheels), escape his cruel master, Diego de Silva (John Sutton). De Silva is el supremo of the Santa Hermandad, charged with enforcing the Spanish Inquisition, and a rival of Pedro's for the affections of the beautiful Lady Luisa de Carvajal (Barbara Lawrence). Suspecting Pedro of aiding Coatl, and aware that Pedro's influential father Don Francisco de Vargas (Antonio Moreno) opposes the abuses of the Santa Hermandad, de Silva uses his office to persecute Pedro and his family as heretics. In the process, de Silva murders Pedro's young sister during torture using the strappado. Pedro turns the tables on de Silva, duping him into renouncing God before running him through with a sword. Pedro frees his mother and father and aids them in escaping Spain. Pedro is a fugitive, believing he has murdered de Silva, unaware that a rib deflected his blade, and wanders Andalusia to evade capture. Along the way Pedro befriends a young barmaid wench at an inn, Catana Pérez (Jean Peters), and an acquaintance, Juan García (Lee J. Cobb), a rogue just back from the New World. Juan is also a fugitive from the Santa Hermandad for murdering his own mother to save her from further torture on the rack.

Juan pleads for Pedro and Catana to join him in journeying back to Cuba, where Hernán Cortéz (Cesar Romero) is said to captain an expedition to plunder great wealth in Mexico. Pedro agrees in hopes of exonerating himself and his family. He meets Cortéz, learns that his and Pedro's father were friends, and that Cortéz is something of a renegade, defying attempts by the governor of Cuba, Diego Velázquez, to replace him as captain of the expedition. Pedro confides in Father Bartolomé (Thomas Gomez), the spiritual adviser to the expedition, about the events in Spain. He places himself in Father Bartolomé's hands, only to learn that he had already received orders from the Santa Hermandad to arrest Pedro. On the strength of Pedro's willing confession, Father Bartolomé tears up the orders and gives Pedro a penance in praying for the soul of de Silva.

The expedition lands at Villa Rica in Mexico.^[2] Cortéz is greeted by ambassadors from the emperor Montezuma, along with warnings to leave Mexico, but is determined to conquer the Aztecs. Several of his captains, recruited from Governor Velázquez's officers, voice their opposition to his plan of conquest and colonization. Catana reveals to Juan that she is in love with Pedro, as hopeless as that situation seems because of their difference in station and his love for the Lady Luisa. Pedro, however, confesses to her that he has fallen in love with her, too, and asks her to marry him. Cortéz leaves his ships and marches inland to Cempoala, where he receives a gift of gems from another Aztec delegation. He gives Pedro a chance to prove his worth by placing him in charge of the detail guarding the gems in a teocalli. Pedro leaves his post, however, when Juan becomes drunk and threatens to murder anyone who comes near him. Cortéz accuses Pedro of the theft of the gems. When Pedro proves that the theft was accomplished using a hidden door into the teocalli, and not his complicity or negligence, Cortéz gives him 24 hours to recover the gems. Pedro tracks the thieves, the captains opposing Cortéz, back to Villa Rica and the ship Gallega, where he learns that they plied Juan with pulque to lure Pedro from his duty. He recovers the gems, although seriously wounded in the head by a crossbow bolt.

Cortéz promotes Pedro to captain. He enlists his captains to burn their ships, to end the temptation for the weak-minded to retreat. They march on to Cholulu, where Coatl is present as a member of another delegation. Coatl vows loyalty to Pedro but warns that he will fight him if necessary to prevent the enslavement of his people. The delegation, headed by the royal prince, threatens the expedition with annihilation, but when Cortez protests that he has no ships, the prince reveals that more have arrived. Cortéz realizes that Velázquez has sent a force to hang him. Cortez divides his force, taking half to attack Villa Rica, leaving Pedro in command of the garrison at Cholulu. Catana tells Juan that she is pregnant with Pedro's child. Cortéz returns victorious, bringing with him hundreds of men of the governor's force persuaded to join him, and also Diego de Silva, the King's emissary who has come to introduce the Santa Hermandad to Mexico. Juan attacks de Silva and is put in chains. Father Bartolomé reminds Pedro of his vow, and Cortéz holds him personally responsible for de Silva's safety. That night de Silva is strangled and Pedro is sentenced to death for the murder. Just before the execution, Coatl confesses to Father Bartolomé that he killed de Silva, but before Pedro can be freed, Catana stabs him with a knife to spare him the degradation of being hanged. Pedro however recovers. A year after its landing, the expedition marches on the Aztec island capital.

Cast

• Tyrone Power ... Pedro de Vargas
• Jean Peters ... Catana Pérez
• Cesar Romero ... Hernán Cortéz^[3]
• Lee J. Cobb ... Juan García
• John Sutton ... Diego de Silva
• Antonio Moreno ... Don Francisco de Vargas
• Thomas Gomez ... Father Bartolomé de Olmedo
• Alan Mowbray ... Professor Humpback Botello
• Barbara Lawrence ... Luisa de Carvajal
• George Zucco ... Marquis de Carvajal
• Roy Roberts ... Capt. Pedro de Alvarado
• Marc Lawrence ... Corio
• Robert Shaw ... Spanish army officer (uncredited)
• Jay Silverheels ... Coatl (uncredited)

Casting notes

Twentieth Century-Fox director-writer-producer Joseph L. Mankiewicz, consulting with executive producer Darryl F. Zanuck on the making of Captain from Castille, recommended a reunion of Tyrone Power and Linda Darnell for the lead roles of Pedro and Catana.^[4] Power returned from service as a Marine Corps aviator during World War II and was available. Darnell was given the role of Catana, but appeared in two other projects while preparation for production was being completed.^[5] In the meantime Zanuck began filming of Forever Amber with the inexperienced Peggy Cummins in the title role, investing $1 million in the project before realizing it had become a disaster. Darnell was reassigned to save the project by replacing Cummins, and the role of Catana went to the then-unknown Jean Peters.^[6]

Other roles recommended by Mankiewicz but not cast were Fredric March as Cortéz, José Ferrer as Coatl, and Alan Reed or William Bendix to play Juan García.^[4]

The film made extensive use of Mexican inhabitants as extras. More than 19,500 took part in various scenes, with approximately 4,500 used in the final sequence filmed in front of Parícutin's smoking cinder cone.^[4]

Production

Screenplay

The screenplay was adapted from Shellabarger's novel, as yet unpublished but serialized in Cosmopolitan,^[7], after Fox chief Zanuck purchased the rights in December 1944 for $100,000. In February 1945, studio contract writer John Tucker Battle produced an outline, then completed a first draft script with Samuel Engel in May. Zanuck consulted Joseph L. Mankiewicz about concepts for the film. Mankiewicz wrote back to Zanuck in July that the historical background of Cortéz' conquest of Mexico had to be both accurate and unoffending to many groups of people. Mankiewicz also warned that the story would be tremendously expensive to film: "To do this picture ambitiously will cost a great deal of money. It will require Technicolor, a huge cast, great numbers of people, elaborate sets, costumes, props, locations etc. The script will take a long time to write—thorough research will be necessary."^[4]

The original scripts and storyline included a scene involving one of the novel's major characters and villains, the Dominican fray/Inquisitor Ignacio de Lora, to be played by British character actor John Burton. De Lora's character conducted the "examination" of the de Vargas family, tortured Juan Garcia's mother, and dispatched the order for Pedro's arrest to Cuba. Citing a December 15, 1947 New York Times article, one source attributes the excision of the scene to censorship by the Rev. John J. Devlin, a representative of the National Legion of Decency and advisor to the Motion Picture Association of America, on the basis that the depiction of the Spanish Inquisition was unacceptable to the Catholic Church. After revision of the script "toned down" depictions of the Inquisition, changing its name from the Santa Casa (The Holy Office) to the Santa Hermandad, eliminating the auto de fe prominent in the book, and making the lay character of de Silva the chief Inquisitor, the script was permissible to Devlin.^[4]

Keeping the film at an acceptable length required moving events that took place in the book's second half, primarily the return of Coatl and demise of de Silva, forward to what became the film's finale. Followers of the novel have criticized the failure to include the second half, which features the expedition's battles with the Aztecs, Pedro's capture during the Noche Triste, his return to Spain and intrigue at the court of Charles V, and Pedro's development from a callow youth of 19 to a mature gentleman.^[8] However, like the film adaptation of Northwest Passage, the film's length and severe costs limited inclusion to those aspects most desired by the producers. The script for similar reasons made minor alterations to relationships in the novel, eliminating Pedro's prior dalliances with Catana, helping Juan against the Inquisition before being persecuted, and combining the characters Humpback Nojara, surgeon Antonio Escobar, and Botello the Astrologer into a single person, "Professor Botello". Even so, the screenplay faithfully adapts the important plot elements and scenes from the novel.^[1]

Historically, the most barbaric atrocities of Cortéz are not depicted in the script. In particular, the slaughter of thousands of Aztecs in Cholula as a warning to Montezuma is instead shown as a single cannon shot demolishing an idol. The first review of the film in the New York Times noted that while the novel seemed written with a Technicolor movie in mind, that the action, horror, and bloodshed of the book were not translated to the film.^[9]

The script, while employing Spanish terminology and names where appropriate, also uses an undisclosed indiginous dialect (likely Nahuatl) for dialogue involving the Aztecs, with the historical personage Doña Marina (portrayed by Mexican actress Estela Inda) providing the translation as she did in real life. Other historically accurate characters portrayed were the mutineers Juan Escudero (John Laurenz) and Diego Cermeño (Reed Hadley), and the loyal Captains Pedro de Alvarado (Roy Roberts) and Gonzalo de Sandoval (Harry Carter).^[10][11]

Locations

Location filming took place in three locations in Mexico between November 1946 and March 1947, two in the Mexican state of Michoacán.^[12] Acapulco provided ocean and beach locations for scenes involving "Villa Rica" (Veracruz). In Michoacán, the hills around Morelia depicted the countryside of Castile for the first half of the film, while extensive shooting took place near Uruapan to depict the Mexican interior. There the volcano Parícutin, which had erupted in 1943 and was still active, was featured in the background of many shots of the Cholulu (Cholula) sequences. In 1519-1520, the volcano Popocatépetl, just to the west of Cholula, had also been active while the Cortez expedition was present.^[13] The film's final scene, involving the movement of the expedition and its thousands of Indian porters, was filmed on the edge of Parícutin's lava beds with the cinder cone prominently nearby in the shot.^[4] The presence of the volcano, however, also proved to be expensive to production, since its ash cloud often made lighting conditions inconducive to filming.

Filming began November 25, 1946, and was completed on April 4, 1947. The film company spent 83 days in Mexico before returning to Hollywood to complete 33 days of studio filming, at a then "extravagant" cost of $4.5 million.^[4][14]

Photography

In addition to the directors of photography credited onscreen, George E. Clarke and Arthur E. Arling, Clarke's protogé Joseph LaShelle also contributed to the filming of Captain from Castile. While LaShelle was noted for excellent black and white photography, particularly in film noir, he had little experience with Technicolor or location shooting. Clarke was competent at both. LaShelle's work in the film appears primarily in interior shots, notably in scenes at Pedro's home. Arling was mainly responsible for second unit filming under assistant director Robert D. Webb. On location, photography inside the temples proved difficult because of poor space for proper lighting and excessive heat that could degrade color film.^[4]

Music

The lively musical score was composed by Alfred Newman, Fox's longtime musical director, and was nominated for an Academy Award.^[15] Newman recorded excerpts from the musical score for 78 RPM records (reportedly at his own expense), and donated his royalties to the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation.^[4] years after he re-recorded the score in stereo for Capitol Records. In 1973, Charles Gerhardt conducted a suite from the film for RCA Victor's tribute album to Newman, Captain from Castile; the quadraphonic recording was later reissued on CD.

Newman bestowed the rights to the film's spectacular march to the University of Southern California to use as theme music for the school's football team. Popularly known as "Conquest," the march is regularly performed by its marching band, the Spirit of Troy as a victory march.^[4] It is also the corps anthem of the Boston Crusaders Drum and Bugle Corps, which has performed the piece in their field show frequently in the past and continues to incorporate it occasionally in their field shows of the present.

Adaptations

A radio adaptation of Captain from Castile was aired on Lux Radio Theatre on February 7, 1949, with Cornel Wilde as Pedro and Jean Peters reprising her role. An adaptation starring Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. was broadcast on the Screen Directors' Playhouse on May 3, 1951.^[4]

References

External links

• Captain From Castile at the Internet Movie Database
• Captain From Castile at the TCM Movie Database
• Captain from Castile at Allmovie