The White Orchid (1954)

I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much

Such a frustrating disappointment

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Released in 1954, The White Orchid is about an expedition to a hidden Mexican civilisation. Not a bad movie but too bad about the sacrifice at the end. Overall the dialogue in The White Orchid is not something worth remembering about and the romance that goes on here is easily forgettable and unremarkable. What happens very late in this movie could easily be the highlight of the movie but I don't feel any excitement with it and all this cause by an accident that could easily have been avoided.

"The White Orchid" is a little on the meandering side and short on thrills (for example, every single animal the heroes meet during their journey turns out to be harmless! They should have thrown a little more danger in there), but it's a good-looking film (even in its current jumpy and somewhat deteriorated DVD prints), and it's also interesting for its morally ambivalent characters; you can even say it was progressive for its time, since the main "foreign" person turns out to be the noblest of the three main characters. Oh, and Peggie Castle looks absolutely yummy, and you can easily see why she made so many films in similar genres - she feels right at home away from home. **1/2 out of 4.

More a postcard of Mexico than a movie, despite which, actor William Lundigan stars as a straight-laced archaeologist who reluctantly takes stand-in photographer (Castle) along on an expedition where tensions grow as a love triangle evolves with local guide (Silvestre).Interesting cast features the young Rosenda Monteros as Silvestre's scorned woman, the ill-fated Peggie Castle as the seductive snapper, and Latin heart-throb Silvestre as the bane of Lundigan's dapper but ultimately bland existence. The soap opera treatment services the romantic melodrama and sexual tension, leaving the action to compete for the sloppy seconds. At times, Lundigan looks like coitus interruptus personified, such are the provocative glances and horny exchanges between Castle and her Latin tease.Despite colourful landscapes and an attractive cast, the film never elevates beyond B-grade fodder, incapable of conjuring any excitement or palpable tension, weighed down by inane dialogue ("merely a vampire bat") and a plot that prefers melodrama to action (60 minutes passes before the first glimpse of something more fervent than tent buddies on heat). The climax and conclusion offer some redemption, with a fiery Aztec encounter, but it's all too little too late to resurrect the picture from 'average' status.

This movie offers some good travel footage of Mexico, including the rarely visited (even today) Veracruz site of El Tajin, which despite the dialogue was built by neither the Toltecs, Aztecs, nor Mayans, but by Huastecan Indians of eastern Veracruz. I have seen this site and also the Voleadores flying from their high pole on festival days. Many reviewers have commented on the faded color quality. This film was almost certainly shot in the winter, when even the jungle is rather bare of leaves (dry tropical deciduous forest). Also, there is nothing close to being a desert between El Tajin and Chiapas, that must have filmed elsewhere. Description of vanilla orchid growth and artificial pollination is correct, although Mexico is the only place in the world where the natural vanilla bee pollinators live. I have this movie on a 20 Movie "Suspense" package from Mill Creek.