Flor de Mayo (1959), a powerfully effective noir romance, was astutely filmed on actual locations in a real Mexican fishing village by director Roberto Gavaldon, who has further allowed the Ibanez novel to come to stirring life by encouraging vivid performances from all his players.
The only dud note in the English version, titled "Beyond All Limits" is struck by Domingo Soler whose voice is poorly dubbed. Everyone else is fine, particularly third-billed (although he actually has the main role) Pedro Armendariz, who, of course, has the advantage of speaking his own lines, as does noirish hero, Jack Palance, in an unusual role which he plays with both charisma and conviction. The music score, emotionally right on target, is absolutely outstanding.
Also to be highly commended are Gabriel Figueroa's color photography and Gloria Schoemann's super-skillful film editing. The Spanish version is available on a 7/10 Cozumel Classic DVD. The film is longer, but doesn't really benefit from its additional scenes, and is further counterbalanced by full-frame printing which tends to ruin the effective wide-screen compositions of the VCI version. This VCI English version, Beyond All Limits, is available on a 10/10 VCI DVD,
The only dud note in the English version, titled "Beyond All Limits" is struck by Domingo Soler whose voice is poorly dubbed. Everyone else is fine, particularly third-billed (although he actually has the main role) Pedro Armendariz, who, of course, has the advantage of speaking his own lines, as does noirish hero, Jack Palance, in an unusual role which he plays with both charisma and conviction. The music score, emotionally right on target, is absolutely outstanding.
Also to be highly commended are Gabriel Figueroa's color photography and Gloria Schoemann's super-skillful film editing. The Spanish version is available on a 7/10 Cozumel Classic DVD. The film is longer, but doesn't really benefit from its additional scenes, and is further counterbalanced by full-frame printing which tends to ruin the effective wide-screen compositions of the VCI version. This VCI English version, Beyond All Limits, is available on a 10/10 VCI DVD,