On V List of Movie Reviews

(For optimum viewing, adjust the zoom level of your browser to 125%.)


Vera Cruz (1954)

Rate: 7
Viewed: 9/24

VeraC
9/24: Highly influential to The Wild Bunch and the Spaghetti Westerns by Sergio Leone, Vera Cruz garnered a lot of solid reviews back then, and I became curious enough to check it out.

The film turns out to be very good with an interesting contrast of acting styles between Gary Cooper and Burt Lancaster. I'm surprised to see how dominant the latter was and how well the former held his ground when lesser actors would've been completely under Burt Lancaster's shadow.

Completely draped in black, Burt Lancaster plays a quite likeable character for a hard-to-figure-out heel with a violent streak. It's too bad to see him be gunned down with nobody telling him how much better he could do. The ending is shocking based on how it happened, and Gary Cooper's character didn't want to do it but had to.

Shot on location in Mexico including Pyramid of the Sun in Teotihuacan, the action is aplenty with some great movie moments. However, the editing peeves me the most. It's herky-jerky in many spots, giving me a hard time to get used to the storytelling, which explains why Alan Crosland, Jr., never edited another film. Happily, Gary Cooper and Burt Lancaster give more-than-enough performances for me to ignore this flaw. By the way, Vera Cruz is the final time that Charles Bronson was credited as Charles Buchinsky.

All in all, Vera Cruz is a watchable Western in many ways with a top ten performance ever by Burt Lancaster.