Wings of the Hawk. 1953. USA. Directed by Budd Boetticher. Screenplay by James E. Moser, based on the novel by Gerald Drayson Adams. With Van Heflin, Julia Adams, Abbe Lane, George Dolenz, Noah Beery Jr., Rodolfo Acosta. 3-D. DCP. 80 min.
Four years before his celebrated run of Randolph Scott Westerns, Budd Boetticher made this 3D Universal production set during the 1911 Mexican Revolution. The premise has the stripped economy that would define his later Ranown films: American miner “Irish” Gallagher (Van Heflin) strikes gold, a corrupt federal colonel (Hungarian actor George Dolenz, father of Micky) seizes the claim and kills his partner, and Irish falls in with a band of rebels, led by a regal Julia Adams. The revolution is backdrop rather than subject—Boetticher is interested in the moral choices men make under pressure, rather than political argument.
Heflin was an unusual Western hero, compact, coiled, and more plausible as a working stiff than as a mythic figure, which suits Boetticher’s stripped-down moral universe. Adams, one of Universal’s most versatile contract players, establishes some real authority as the rebel leader before the inevitable romance arrives. Apart from a few requisite objects hurled at the camera, Boetticher uses the 3D format for spatial depth rather than spectacle, leading to an extravagantly explosive finale that, as Boetticher later recounted in an unpublished memoir, shut down production across the Burbank lot and precipitated his departure from the studio.