Stars: Gary Cooper, Burt Lancaster, Cesar Romero, George Macready, Ernest Borgnine, Morris Ankrum, Denise Darcel, Sarita Montiel

Director: Robert Aldrich

Summary: Two men travel south of the border to sell arms to the highest bidder in Mexico, as the war against Emperor Maximillian rages.

In Robert Aldrich's action-packed Western, Benjamin Trane (Gary Cooper) and Joe Erin (Burt Lancaster) are American soldiers of fortune hired by the Austrian ruler of Mexico, Maximilian, to safeguard a royal convoy transporting gold and an Austrian countess to the port of Vera Cruz. Things get complicated for the mercenaries when they begin to mistrust one another--and when Erin starts to fall for the countess. Aldrich throws a bit of European exotica into the standard oater formula of guns, grit, and gold to create a striking, memorable film that showcases the acting talents of Cooper and Lancaster, two monumental Hollywood stars. The director also sprinkles some trenchant historical commentary into his powder-keg narrative by showing the Hapsburg empire's bumbling attempt to annex Mexico.

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Vera Cruzwas 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 fatalerole, 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 Cruzushered 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

Aspect Ratio:	16:9 Anamorphic Wide Screen
Main Language:	English
Region:	Region 2
Special Features:	Original Theatrical Trailer, Interactive Menu, Chapter Selection
Subtitles:	Danish, Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Norwegian, Spanish, Swedish
Year:	1954
Release Date:	June 11, 2001
Runtime:	90 minutes
Certification:
Catalogue Number:	16233 D V D
Label:	Movietime
Keywords:	Wide, Screen, Cruz, Vera, Westerns
Genre:	Westerns