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One of my all time favorites.

Excellent but underrated film

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

It is encouraging that the film ends so strongly.Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a particularly memorable film

The most original moment of this glorified Mexican travelogue in colour is the opening scene which initially seems to be being narrated to us by William Lundigan, who then turns out to be dictating into a tape recorder. Unfortunately, with the appearance a few minutes later of gorgeous high-maintenance Peggie Castle to introduce herself as his photographer he responds with the usual boorishness towards women that heroes in these films always display and banality is the order of the day for the remainder of the film. Things actually get worse when Armando Silvestre enters the picture as their guide, since the two of them thereafter bicker incessantly over her. (She's wearing a wedding ring, but no one ever mentions that, including Ms Castle.) Peggie herself looks a treat as usual, especially after she changes into jeans and a blouse to go on safari (during which she continues to wear lipstick); but director Reginald LeBorg is perplexingly extremely parsimonious with close ups of her.The 'plot' however is just the glue holding together the Eastman Color footage of fiestas and Mexican scenery shot by Gilbert Warrenton and local cameraman Enrique Wallace (billed as 'Henry'). Lundigan is supposed to be a famous archaeologist who has written books and given lectures about the area, yet has to keep asking Silvestre to explain everything they encounter; and at the end demonstrates his respect for the local culture by burning their village to the ground (Miss Castle's photographic film making good firelighters).

Released in 1954, The White Orchid is about an expedition to a hidden Mexican civilisation. Not a bad movie but too bad about the sacrifice at the end. Overall the dialogue in The White Orchid is not something worth remembering about and the romance that goes on here is easily forgettable and unremarkable. What happens very late in this movie could easily be the highlight of the movie but I don't feel any excitement with it and all this cause by an accident that could easily have been avoided.

"The White Orchid" is a little on the meandering side and short on thrills (for example, every single animal the heroes meet during their journey turns out to be harmless! They should have thrown a little more danger in there), but it's a good-looking film (even in its current jumpy and somewhat deteriorated DVD prints), and it's also interesting for its morally ambivalent characters; you can even say it was progressive for its time, since the main "foreign" person turns out to be the noblest of the three main characters. Oh, and Peggie Castle looks absolutely yummy, and you can easily see why she made so many films in similar genres - she feels right at home away from home. **1/2 out of 4.

This movie offers some good travel footage of Mexico, including the rarely visited (even today) Veracruz site of El Tajin, which despite the dialogue was built by neither the Toltecs, Aztecs, nor Mayans, but by Huastecan Indians of eastern Veracruz. I have seen this site and also the Voleadores flying from their high pole on festival days. Many reviewers have commented on the faded color quality. This film was almost certainly shot in the winter, when even the jungle is rather bare of leaves (dry tropical deciduous forest). Also, there is nothing close to being a desert between El Tajin and Chiapas, that must have filmed elsewhere. Description of vanilla orchid growth and artificial pollination is correct, although Mexico is the only place in the world where the natural vanilla bee pollinators live. I have this movie on a 20 Movie "Suspense" package from Mill Creek.