Twentieth Century Fox bankrolled 1948’s most lavish adventure epic, a tale of romance and intrigue set in the days of the Spanish Inquisition.
In 1519, a small fleet of Cuban ships commanded by Hernando Cortez, a Spanish adventurer, landed on the coast of Mexico with about 700 soldiers and seamen. There, he founded the settlement of Veracruz and scuttled all the ships but one, which he sent to his king with the message that he was going to conquer Mexico for the glory of God and Spain. Cortez then led his forces inland against the Aztec capital, Tenochtitlan, now the site of Mexico City.
In the fall of 1946, a small army of 205 technicians, craftsmen and actors commanded by Henry King a Norte Americano movie director landed at Ciudad Morelia (est. 1571), 190 miles west of Mexico City. This force, however, disembarked from chartered airplanes. A fleet of 50 trucks also arrived with more than 2,000 tons of equipment, costumes, props, a dry-cleaning plant, generators, and other miscellany. The material had been sent to Mexico City on a special train in eight tightly packed baggage cars, but had to be loaded into trucks for travel to Morelia and other locations.
This second invasion was coordinated by Twentieth Century Fox to make Captain from Castile, a Technicolor epic based on a best-selling novel by Samuel Shellabarger.
Darryl F. Zanuck, vice president in charge of production, believed there were two sure-fire sources of material for successful pictures: newspaper headlines and best-selling novels. Usually, he was right on both counts. However, Shellabarger’s novel had several built-in hazards as a movie property: its 502 pages of small type contained enough material for several features, and the book would have to be condensed drastically without losing the elements which had made it popular. Much of it dealt with the Spanish Inquisition, a subject predestined to a morass of censorship problems. The Conquest of Mexico by Cortez was another touchy subject. Who are the good guys? Surely not the Spanish invaders, who plundered ruthlessly under the protection of the cross and a foreign sovereign! Hardly the Aztecs, who had an advanced civilization yet waged war constantly, practiced human sacrifice on a massive scale and indulged in cannibalism!
These problems were dropped into the lap of Lamar Trotti, Zanuck’s favorite screenwriter for the previous 14 years, who had recently become a producer as well. Trotti was then working on the script and preproduction of a Betty Grable picture, Mother Wore Tights, but was so intrigued by the Cortez expedition that he took time out for a research trip to Mexico. After the Grable musical was completed, he went to work on Captain in earnest, following a treatment by John Tucker Battle. In a press release, Trotti said that "only one-third of the story represents action suitable for picturization. The remainder is description or accounts of various subtle thought processes. The screen version must omit everything that is not absolutely essential to the plot." Working closely with director King, Trotti delivered a finished script of just 159 pages.
Central to the screenplay is Pedro de Vargas, the son of an aristocratic Castilian family, who rescues a young peasant girl, Catana Perez, from the lackeys and hunting dogs of Diego de Silva, inquisitor general of the Inquisition. De Silva charges the de Vargas family with heresy. Refusing to indict her family, Pedro’s 12-year-old sister dies under torture. Catana’s brother, a turnkey, slips a sword into Pedro’s cell. When de Silva comes to his cell, Pedro defeats him in a swordfight and forces de Silva to renounce God. Then he runs the inquisitor through with his blade, leaving him for dead. Juan Garcia, an enemy of the inquisition, helps the family to escape. Pedro’s parents flee to Italy while Pedro, Catana and Juan catch a ship to Cuba. There, the men enlist in the army of Pedro’s father’s friend, Hernando Cortez, who is about to invade Mexico. Catana joins the camp followers.
In Mexico, Pedro is injured when he rescues a hoard of jewels stolen by soldiers. De Silva now turns up very much alive, seeking to expand the Inquisition’s power. He tells Cortez that Pedro tried to kill him and is wanted for murder. Cortez gives Pedro the responsibility for de Silva’s safety, under threat of execution. But during the night de Silva is stabbed to death, and thus Pedro is sentenced to die. To spare Pedro from the garotte, Catana stabs young aristocrat. In the meantime, de Silva’s former slave, Coatl, confesses to Father Bartolome that he murdered de Silva. Pedro recovers and joins the conquistadors’ march toward Montezuma’s stronghold. Catana, carrying her newborn son, follows with Father Bartolome.
One of director Henry King’s favorite actors was Tyrone Power, a fellow flying enthusiast who had starred in six of King’s pictures, beginning with Lloyds of London in 1936. During World War II, while he was on Guam serving as a Marine transport pilot, Power wrote to King that he believed the war would soon be over and asked if he had read the new novel Captain from Castile. The actor expressed the hope that when the war ended, he and King would make the film version together. It happened that Darryl Zanuck had already arranged to buy rights to the book. He agreed with King that Power should have the role, and that all exteriors should be filmed in Mexico in Technicolor. When Power returned from his term of service, Captain from Castile was in the early stages of preparation. Meanwhile, he made another high-budget picture, The Razor’s Edge.
King was the director Zanuck habitually depended upon to bring in large-scale productions such as Alexander’s Ragtime Band, Song of Bernadette and Wilson. His preproduction work on Captain from Castile was enormous. He had the research department compile three heavy volumes of historical information. Supervising art director Richard Day put James Basevi in charge of designing the sets. Basevi, equally noted as an art director and a director of special effects, designed 80 sets to be constructed on location and 20 interiors to be built in the studio.
Although Pedro de Vargas, the book’s title character, had red hair, Power refused to have his hair dyed. He got the role anyway. Zanuck had planned to borrow Jennifer Jones from Selznick International to co-star as Pedro’s lover, but she proved unavailable at starting time. Linda Darnell was then slated for the part, but Zanuck decided to restart the troubled Forever Amber with Darnell replacing Peggy Cummins in the starring role.
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