Il prigioniero della miniera

This was the fourth film telecast on "NBC Saturday Night at the Movies," the first television program to exclusively broadcast post-1948 theatrical films on US network television. This one was first telecast 14 October 1961, and like the opener of the series, How to Marry a Millionaire, and several others which followed, had been filmed in CinemaScope, at its original 2.55:1 ratio, and so had to be "formatted to fit your screen" i.e. shown pan/scan in the conventional 4:3 TV ratio, losing nearly half of the image in the process, and literally destroying the composition of each scene. But viewers didn't seem to mind. The idea proved so successful that NBC soon followed it up with another series with the identical format, "Monday Night at the Movies," and it wasn't long before the format was taken up by both CBS and ABC.

The film is set in Mexico and the Indians are being called Apaches. However, they are dressed as Northeastern American Mohawks. In addition, the men of the Apache nations were traditionally long-haired. In this film, the "Apache" Indians are sporting Northeastern Mohawk haircuts.

Edited into Verifica incerta - Disperse Exclamatory Phase (1965)