Directed by Andrew Marton and produced by Armand Deutsch, Green Fire, a lushly shot CinemaScope adventure, stars Grace Kelly, Stewart Granger, and Paul Douglas.
Grace Kelly was under contract to MGM, which released Green Fire, but she made her more famous and critically acclaimed films, Rear Window, Dial M for Murder, To Catch a Thief, while loaned out to other studios, such as Universal and Paramount.
Cast in a typical role, macho man Stewart Granger plays rugged mining engineer Rian Mitchell, who discovers lost emerald mine in Colombia, which had last been operated by the Spanish conquistadors.
Though obsessed with wealth, Rian has to contend with local bandits and a savage jaguar. Taken to recuperate at the plantation of local coffee grower Catherine Knowland (Grace Kelly) and her brother Donald (John Ericson), Rian charms Catherine, and soon they fall in love.
Rian’s partner, Vic Leonard (Paul Douglas), prepares to leave Colombia, but Rian, anxious to get Vic’s assistance to mine the emeralds, tricks him into staying. Rian gets Catherine’s cooperation before resuming his romantic overtures.
However, his greed to get the emeralds creates trouble, coming into conflict with the chief of the local bandits, who threatens Catherine. He also takes Donald into the mining operation, despite Donald’s complete inexperience, in order to obtain the coffee plantation workers on for his mining needs.
As a result, Catherine lacks workers to pick the coffee at harvest time. Rian’s mining operations also put the plantation at risk of flooding.
When a tragic accident at the mine site kills Donald, Vic abandons his old friend Rian and sets out to help Catherine with her harvest, while harboring his own passion for her.
In the final shootout between the bandits and Rian’s men, Catherine and Vic support him. Rian finally comes to his senses and realize his mistakes.
He thereupon sets an explosion of dynamite that diverts the water away from Catherine’s plantation, but also buries the mine under rubble, before reuniting with Catherine.
