Review of Vera Cruz (1954) by Christina C — 18 Feb 2008

"Vera Cruz" is most notable for two things: it is a precursor to the amoral Sergio Leone antihero westerns, and it pairs two big-screen cowboy legends in Gary Cooper and Burt Lancaster.

Lancaster shines as ever and is just a joy to watch: his Joe Erin looks super-cool and sexy in dusty black, a grinning, charming mercenary brute who's only out for himself but can appreciate a good adversary along the way. Gary Cooper is a deadpan, cynical Southern landowner who's lost everything in the war - his Ben Trane too is mercenary, but ever so slightly more principled than Erin. Like Vivien Leigh calling up the ghost of Scarlett in her Blanche DuBois ("Streetcar Named Desire"), Cooper's world-weary mercenary here represents an earlier, simplier generation of western heroes coming face to face with a more complicated modernity.

The story itself is full of double-crossings and memorable standoffs (memorable cameos from Ernest Borgnine, Charles Bronson). Denise Darcel and the charismatic Sara Montiel (in her Hollywood debut!) provide the equally sly and scheming female love interests. Like many films Lancaster was involved with, the film inclines somewhat to the underdog revolutionaries.

It's a classic, gorgeous and sparkling with great dialogue from a great cast. However, it lacks something of the sweeping wide-open feel of the classic Western, no doubt deliberately. This is a cinematic place that is very much peopled and politicised.