VERA CRUZ (1954)

Deservedly popular Western with comic trimmings (second release from Burt Lancaster’s production company and second of four with director Robert Aldrich), gets just about everything right.*  Set soon after the U.S. Civil War, we’re South-of-the-Border for another Civil War (Franco-Mexican) where Burt and his company of mercenaries are hunting up Pay-to-Slay opportunities.  (Check out the future stars in that group!)  And since the populist Juaristas are poor peasants, choice goes to the French-backed Emperor Maximilian.  Ruined Southern General Gary Cooper, also looking for a quick payday, meets-cute with Burt on the way to selling his services and the two become fast frenemies: getting along, needing (or needling) each other and fighting it out all thru the film.  (That meet-cute a dandy BTW, so too all the solid reverses & switchbacks that make up the script’s organizing principle along with two untrustworthy ladies and a hidden stash of Mexican gold.)  Aldrich brings this elaborate tale in at a brisk hour & a half, but should also be celebrated for how he anticipates Western trends that led straight on to Sam Peckinpah and Sergio Leone ‘Spaghetti Westerns.’   Still, when all is said and done, it’s Burt’s teeth that pretty much steal the pic.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID/LINK:  *That one error would be the choice of SuperScope as WideScreen format.  Here’s a LINK to an excellent discussion on the WideScreen SuperScope process, which was first used right here!  A CinemaScope knock-off that used regular 35mm film & cameras and fully exposed the negative, a bit like Super-16mm.  Only the print’s captured image, or rather the negative, cropped top & bottom, would then become anamorphic, usually in a 2:1 aspect ratio, for theatrical prints to project.  This really pushed the grain in certain lighting situations and generally meant that this cheapest of WideScreen processes looked the cheapest.  http://www.widescreenmuseum.com/widescreen/wingss1.htm

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK:  Get to know the political players (sort of) with Warners' slightly stiff/mostly fascinating bio-pic JUAREZ/’39.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2014/01/juarez-1939.html