Blowing Wild (1953)

Set in South America. After bandits destroy his wildcat oil well, a driller (Gary Cooper) takes a job with an old friend (Anthony Quinn) who owns eighteen oil wells. But his friend's wife (Barbara Stanwyck), who is an ex-lover of the oilman, makes things difficult when she makes it clear she intends to have him as her lover again. Directed by Hugo Fregonese (MAN IN THE ATTIC), this is a juicy slice of dramatic entanglements with a generous amount of action. There's a lot of star power at work here and they make the movie seem better than it is. Stanwyck is wonderful here doing a less subtle version of her Phyllis Dietrichson from DOUBLE INDEMNITY. When she isn't poisoning everything around her, we have to contend with the lethal bandit (Juan Garcia) who seems to have wandered in straight out of TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE. There's a nice underscore by Dimitri Tiomkin with Frankie Laine singing the title tune (shades of HIGH NOON). With Ruth Roman, Ward Bond and Ian MacDonald.