Produced by Burt Lancaster's own company, Vera Cruz teams Lancaster with the venerable Gary Cooper. The story, set during the Mexican revolution of 1866, casts Coop and Lancaster as Ben Trane and Joe Erin, two rival soldiers of fortune who team to fight for the highest bidder. The two men come to loggerheads when Trane's sweetheart Nina (Sarita Montiel) begs them to fight on the side of the rebels, while the wealthy Marquis de Labodere (Cesar Romero) implores them to offer their services to Emperor Maximillian. Though they still haven't taken sides, Trane and Erin agree to escort the aristocratic Countess Marie Duvarre (Danielle Darrieux) through hostile territory to Vera Cruz. It soon develops that the Countess is transporting a gold shipment to the Emperor's armies. Hardly the most patriotic of souls, she offers to split the gold with Trane and Erin, but they steal it for themselves instead. It takes a while (and several bloody armed confrontations) before the two protagonists do The Right Thing. While it's fun to watch Burt Lancaster try to upstage the taciturn Gary Cooper, the film's best line goes to supporting player Henry Brandon: impassively watching the loutish Lancaster wolf down his dinner and slop wine all over his blouse, Brandon says calmly "Be careful, senor. Some of it is getting in your mouth." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Review by All Movie Guide
All Movie Guide
liked it.
A vital antecedent to
Sergio Leone's comically cynical spaghetti Westerns, Vera Cruz (1954) dispenses with black-and-white distinctions between good and bad and ratchets up the humor, becoming a comic yet violent epic of American bad behavior during the Mexican Revolution. Though
Gary Cooper sports the lighter hat than grinning co-star
Burt Lancaster, both pursue the highest paycheck and a cache of gold with an amusingly amoral fervor that stands in striking contrast to their more noble Western incarnations in
High Noon (1952) and
Apache (1954), respectively. Cooper's anti-imperialist conscience and Southern manners provide the few glimmers of ethics, as well as several laughs at the snobbish Mexicans' expense. While Lancaster's charisma and wit make him into an inordinately appealing outlaw, director
Robert Aldrich's harshly staged battles finally reveal the cost of such systemic greed. Boasting gloriously composed, location-shot widescreen vistas as well as megastars Cooper and Lancaster, Vera Cruz overcame critical distaste for its gleeful venality to become a blockbuster hit. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide