Vera Cruz
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Movie Reviews of Vera Cruz
Movie Review: A terrific, fun, 'Western-noir'
Summary: 4 Stars
Excellent, fun, dark western-noir. Gary Cooper, and especially Burt Lancaster are terrific. Lots of good plot twists, double dealing, action sequences, and murky morality in the best Robert Aldrich tradition.
Both men are mercenaries working for the highest bidder in the Mexican revolution, while planning to steal a fortune in gold from both their employers and from each other.
Not quite powerful enough a to be a great film, but fun enough to be enjoyable even on 2nd viewing.
Movie Review: Lancaster chews chicken
Summary: 3 Stars
In this movie, Burt Lancaster not only chews the scenery, he chews chicken.
In seemingly every other scene, Lancaster grabs a handful of chicken and tears off chunks with his lycanthropic teeth. Then he'll snatch up a goblet of wine and spill it on himself while downing the contents in a gulp or two. He's a lusty guy. He talks with his mouth full. He bares his teeth like a mad dog. He's a flashy gunslinger. He kills people with a grin on his face. He slaps women silly and then gives 'em a big sloppy kiss. There is a stylish humor about Lancaster's performance.
The movie is one of many "spectacles" produced in the 1950s to combat the growing menace of television. There were also biblical epics, Roman epics, pharaoh epics.
Featured in this movie
A typical stoic performance by Gary Cooper, a fortune in gold bullion concealed in a fancy red carriage, a saucy contessa who rides in the carriage, a battalion of mounted soldiers armed with lances and costumed like conquistadors with plumed helmets, hordes of Mexican peasants in shabby white costumes (a staple of any western set in Mexico, i.e, the Magnificent Seven), a spicy young Consuelo who functions as Cooper's love interest, spectacular gunplay, a band of henchmen (including Ernest Borgnine and Charles Bronson) who rape and kill for fun, shots of the great Aztec monuments.
What happens
The gold has to be transported through hostile precincts to the port of Veracruz. An escort, including Cooper, Lancaster, the henchmen, and the mounted lancers, is organized to assure delivery. They all want to get the gold. There are double-crosses, ambushes, and pitched battles. White-clad peasants are mowed down like cornstalks. The henchmen corner the fiery young Consuelo for a gang-bang. Borgnine's character suggests that she scream. "I like 'em when they scream." Cooper's character offers to buy Consuelo a thousand silk dresses with shoes and all the trimmings. Lancaster's character thinks Cooper's character is a sap because of his southern gentleman values. One of the main characters comes to a bad end. There is lusty chicken-eating along the way.
Movie Review: Vera Cruz
Summary: 3 Stars
Two veterans of the recently ended American Civil War travel south to Mexico and become soldiers of fortune in VERA CRUZ (1954), an okay western that features the three keys to many a film's success - gun, girls, and gold. Gary Cooper and Burt Lancaster plays the veterans of the late War Between the States, and their posse is filled out with a number of familiar and welcome faces - Ernest Borgnine, Jack Lambert, Jack Elam, and a young Charles Bronson (billed as Charles Buchinsky.) Lancaster, whose Hecht-Lancaster team produced this film - plays Joe Erin, a grinning rogue who's just interested in the gold discovered somewhere near the end of the first act. Cooper plays Benjamin Trane, the ex-Reb who lost his New Orleans plantation and his southern accent in the war.
Lancaster, buried somewhere beneath his thousand-watt, blinding smile, is down there for the money while the older, and certainly more weary, Cooper is more amenable to the cause of the local Juarezistas in their war against the corrupt government of Emperor Maximillian. Still, the two team up, with posse and flashy Winchesters in tow, to hire themselves out as escorts. The Countess Marie Duvarre needs transport to the port city of Vera Cruz, where she may catch a boat out of the country. Leading the government troops, and therefore an uneasy ally to the two Americans, is the Marquis Henri de Labordere, known to us as Cesar Romero.
I don't know all that much about Gary Cooper, but he seems worn and old in VERA CRUZ. He was able to translate his laconic style into some memorable performances, but here it just makes him seem old and tired out. Too old for the part, and a little embarrassing when cast against the acrobatic and energetic Lancaster. That the youthful, 26-year-old Sara Montiel is cast against him as the peasant girl love interest is a little unsettling. Still, VERA CRUZ was a successful movie in its day - grossing $9 million on a $3 million investment - the print's in good condition and the Mexican locales lend an air of authenticity to things.
Movie Review: Pretty Good for a Saturday Afternoon
Summary: 3 Stars
"Vera Cruz," produced by Hecht-Lancaster and directed by Robert Aldrich, makes a fun movie for a Saturday afternoon. Over-bright colors (especially Lancaster's teeth!) and stiff acting (except for Burt, who's over the top) give it an unreal quality. (Only Caesar Romero seems to be having fun.) But the film has other interesting aspects. It is an early example of the fascination of some gringos with Mexico's revolutions. ("The Magnificent Seven" and "The Professionals" and "The Wild Bunch" are the most obvious.) The original story, by Borden Chase, deals with the Juaristas and is the basis of a pretty good novel by Chase, "Viva Gringo," updated to the 1917 revolution. The climax, with the Yanquis turning the machine gun on the bad guys, shows up in "Wild Bunch," but also an identical aftermath scene with the peasant women coming out to identify and mourn their men. You can see early Jack Elam and Charles Bronson and Ernest Borgnine, and there's even a shot of Cooper knocking Borgnine through the door of the saloon and into the dusty street. (Spencer Tracey repeats in "Bad Day at Black Rock" the next year.) So, not the greatest Western ever made; Cooper will do better and so will Lancaster, and their supporting gunslingers also go on to solid careers. But pretty good for a rainy Saturday afternoon.Movie Review: Before "The Dirty Dozen" there was the Dirty Duo...
Summary: 3 Stars
Directed by Robert Aldrich pre. WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE? and DIRTY DOZEN, VERA CRUZ is a western which sees the teaming of movie legends Burt Lancaster and Gary Cooper as mercenaries in the 1860s Mexican revolution. In a novel twist Benjamin Trane (Cooper) is the good guy and Joe Erin (Lancaster) is the bad guy, but are both drawn together when a gorgeous Countess (Denise Darcel) offers them $50,000 to escort her and a fortune in gold to the Emperor's troops in Vera Cruz. Not surprisingly the two men's growing greed and jealousy over the cash and the Countess place them further at odds with each other, which really isn't the best of situations when you're in the middle of a raging war; as well as being pursued by a band of outlaws led by Ernest Borgnine.VERA CRUZ is a watchable western that coasts a long way on star power but climaxes in an all too predictable HIGH NOON finale (Which in 1954 would actually have been a reasonably innovative wrap-up to spring on audiences of the era). The movie is also notable for an early screen appearance by Charles Bronson, in his final billing under the name "Charles Buchinski" playing a member of Borgnine's gang. An entertaining movie, but there's not a lot here that distinguishes VERA CRUZ from countless other westerns of the day. It's still worth a look.