Vera Cruz was only director Robert Aldrich's second Western (his first, made a few months earlier, was the revisionist, pro-Native-American Apache), but it's such an assured, stylish affair that he might have been roaming the sagebrush for decades. In the aftermath of the American Civil War two lone adventurers make their way south of the border, where Mexico is fighting a civil war of its own to rid the country of the French-imposed Emperor Maximilian. Neither the dour Benjamin Trane (Gary Cooper) nor the grinning, devil-may-care Joe Erin (Burt Lancaster) has much... in the way of idealism, but Trane still retains a thin bitter edge of integrity, a quality quite alien to the cheerfully amoral Erin. In uneasy alliance, constantly looking to outwit or double-cross each other, the two find themselves escorting a beautiful French countess (Denise Darcel) and a shipment of gold across country. Cooper and Lancaster create a superb double-act, using their contrasted screen personas to point up the humour and the cynicism of the two mercenaries' relationship. Darcel makes less than she might of the femme fatale role, but there are relishable cameos from Cesar Romero as a suavely duplicitous aristo and Ernest Borgnine as another gringo with an exceptionally vicious streak. The script, according to Aldrich, was written on the run, "always finished about five minutes before we shot it", but you wouldn't guess it from the laconic wit of the dialogue. It looks great, too--Ernest Laszlo's widescreen photography makes the most of the handsome Mexican locations. With its irreverent take on the accepted moral conventions of the genre, Vera Cruz ushered in a new kind of Western, and its central love-hate relationship would be replayed in Sam Peckinpah's Ride the High Country (1962) and Sergio Leone's The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966). On the DVD: Not much in the way of extras but the mono sound has been expertly remastered to the benefit of Hugo Friedhofer's spirited score. Above all, the film's presented in its full Superscope ratio (16:9), a blessed relief after all those years when it showed up panned-and-scanned on BBC1. If ever a movie needed widescreen, it's this one--if only to fit in all Burt's teeth. You can see why they called him "Crockery Joe". --Philip Kemp [show more]
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Please note this is a region B Blu-ray and will require a region B or region free Blu-ray player in order to play Legendary screen icons Gary Cooper (High Noon) and Burt Lancaster (Elmer Gantry) team up for a magnificent action-packed Western from director Robert Aldrich (The Dirty Dozen) and screenwriters Roland Kibbee and James R Webb With sweeping vistas and larger than- life heroics it&39;s a tale as bold and rugged as the characters it so brilliantly depicts Cooper and Lancaster portray Benjamin Trane and Joe Erin two daredevil mercenaries who journey to Mexico in search of adventure - and cold hard cash - during the 1866 revolution But they get more than they bargained for when the wealthy and beautiful Countess Duvarre (Denise Darcel) hires them to escort her (and a fortune in gold!) to Emperor Maximilian&39;s fighting forces in Vera Cruz The trail is fraught with danger betrayal and murderand when Ben is swept up in the revolutionaries&39; fervour he and Joe find themselves at odds with the Mexican army - and each other! Actors Gary Cooper Burt Lancaster Denise Darcel Cesar Romero & Sara Montiel Director Robert Aldrich Certificate PG Year 1954 Screen 2001 Languages English - DTS-HD Master Audio (20) Subtitles English for the hearing impaired Closed Captions Yes Duration 1 hour and 33 minutes (approx)
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