Best movie of this year hands down!

It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

I'll tell you the problem with Blowing Wild: the casting. Barbara Stanwyck is married to Anthony Quinn but falls in love with Gary Cooper. Yes, you read that correctly. She's married to the passionate, ruggedly attractive, warm Anthony Quinn, but she'd rather have the wooden, cold, clueless Gary Cooper. It doesn't make any sense, and since that's the main plot of the movie, the movie doesn't make any sense.There's another woman in the picture, Ruth Roman, and while Barbara is clearly drawn out to be the "bad girl", I didn't think Ruth was much better. She meets Gary and immediately tries to con him out of a hundred dollars, then pulls the same scheme on his business partner, Ward Bond. Why are we supposed to root for her instead of Barbara? The love triangles aside, the plot isn't terrible, but the oil rigs and bandits and transportation of nitro bombs aren't really that captivating, since they're given a backseat to the scenes with the ladies. You can give this a shot if you like the cast, but just know you've been warned. I mean, would you cheat on Anthony Quinn with Gary Cooper? I don't know anyone who would.

Blowin Wild is the type of movie you took for granted when originally released and now can appreciate how good it is. Starting with Barbara Stanwick who could play a "femme fatale" better than no one, Anthony Quinn as the good guy's friend, that has a great weakness, a role he also played in Warlock, Quinn was the ideal villain, and Gary Cooper was one of the best heroes ever on the screen. The outstanding Ward Bond and the pretty Ruth Roman complete this fantastic cast. Apart from the ridiculous premise that there are independent small oil operations in South America, this is an excellent western (at least at heart). At certain moments I was reminded of The Wages of Fear (Le Salaire de la Peur, 1953, others of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre(1948). There is a great scene when Barbara Stanwick and Ruth Roman confront each other.

From the acting of Anthony Quinn to the exquisitely overblown melodramatic elements, Blowing Wild is a great relatively unknown gem of a modern western.In the current trend of films that must have happy endings and uplifting themes I found it just so refreshing to watch something where it all goes wrong. The heroic sensible character does not win the day, there is no overcoming of difficult circumstances although there is certainly bravery and doggedness.The art of the tragedy bares it's garish colours in Blowing Wild. With so many of today's directors chasing the ghosts of "modern" themes, trying to speak to "modern" audiences, they would do well to study a film such as this, and other's of the older period. They seem to have far more to say to us "moderns" than current offerings that seem to have regressed to some kind of prepubescent state.

"Blowing Wild" showed unexpectedly the other day on cable. Seldom seen these days, this film reunited once again Gary Cooper and Barbara Stanwyck. Alas, they are not as effective in it as they were in either "Ball of Fire", or "Meet John Doe", two of the best comedies of the 40s, bar none. The film was directed by Hugo Fregonese.The setting is an unnamed Latin country, which must have been Mexico. It focuses on the people that wanted to get involved in the oil business because of the wealth it generated. There is a sequence that parallels Henri-Georges Cluzot's "The Wages of Fear" as Jeff Dawson and Dutch Peterson are asked to transport a crate full of dynamite to a nearby oil drilling site. It's a rustic route full of dangers and local bandits. Probably this was purely coincidental since both films came out in the same year in two continents apart.Gary Cooper, who appears as Jeff Dawson, a wildcatter, seems to be acting on auto pilot. He was always a minimalist actor. He was not too expressive a man on the screen. Playing opposite Ms. Stanwyck, whose character showed an explosive nature, he did not show any emotion to speak of. Barbara Stanwyck, in contrast shows a talent for impersonating an ambitious Marina Conway, who had a romance with Dawson in the past. She is now married to a Paco Conway, a man she feels disgust for. She tries to rekindle whatever they shared in the past with bad results.Anthony Quinn makes an impression with his Paco Conway, the man that had the good fortune of striking rich with the oil he found. Mr. Quinn has a great scene at the local watering hole where he dances with a young woman and later pretends to be a matador with another. Ward Bond is also seen in the movie as Dutch Peterson, Dawson's partner. Ruth Roman has an important supporting role and she does well. Ian McDonald, who was in "High Noon" with Mr. Cooper has a small part.It's easy to see why the film has kept its appeal. The copy shown was of superior quality. Sidney Hickox's cinematography was memorable, and the same can be said about Dimitri Tiomkin's musical score. Frankie Laine is heard with the theme song throughout the movie.