My lord is this a throwback to the so-called golden days of Hollywood! Released in 1947, it runs a long 140 minutes. It was meant to be an epic in grand Hollywood fashion. It really turns out to be a grand mess.
For a film made in the 1940's, it unusually made a real attempt to get the "Indian" stuff more or less right. The Mexican government and the National Anthropological museum of Mexico were consulted on the matter. I can understand that at the time there was not nearly as much information on the Aztec civilization as there is today, since the vast majority of artifacts from Tenochtitlan (now Mexico City) were not found until the late 1970's (the Calendar round being the exception--it was found in 1790). However, this had a budget that was also epic. It seems to me that a film about the conquest of Mexico and the hands of just a few Spanish would at least include the Aztec emperor at the time.
Additionally with all the willingness of the screen writers to attempt to show the petty infighting in amongst the Spanish, and the down right craven nature of several of them, they would have made more of attempt to tell the story of Cortez in a truer fashion. These are elements of grand Hollywood epics that failed that I find downright fascinating! The ones that fail do so largely because the writing tends to be a twisted mess. With this film, there is no real attempt to try to rewrite history to justify the Spanish invasion of Mexico, so it really begs the question as to why it was necessary to twist the actual history of the event. One can only assume that studio bosses at the time felt it was necessary to try to write in Tyron Power's character in some romantic fashion. And then there are the Christian elements of it. On the one hand, it shows the Catholic Inquisition of the time as a true and corrupt evil, but it just can't leave it go at that, there HAS to be some Christian elements that are shown as counter to that: which is also ahistorical.
When well done, the grand Hollywood epic is a thing to behold; the ones that fail (and they are usually attempts at actual history) meander in the wilderness of tedium. Having said all of that, this movie does have some interesting elements of production.
1. It employs actual natives to play natives, something that was almost universally frowned on in Hollywood at the time. Mohawk actor Jay Silverheels, who later became famous for his portrayal of Tonto in "The Long Ranger," does a convincing job as Coatl, the Aztec who can speak English (which doubles here for Spanish).
2. It was shot entirely in Mexico, and it at least a few scenes, the volcano Paritacun, which was erupting at the time can be seen in the background. It is truly breathtaking.
3. The Nahuatl language is used to a great degree when the Spanish are shown first arriving in Mexico--and in no small way. Large portions of native dialogue are featured, and it is easily translatable. Again, featuring Native languages in Hollywood with actual dialogue written for them was unheard of.
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