VERA CRUZ (1954)

   Gary Cooper, Burt Lancaster, Sara Montiel, Ernest Borgnine, Charles Bronson, Jack Elam, Henry Brandon, Robert Aldrich (director)

   In light of the spaghetti Westerns of the 1960s and 1970s that often take place in Mexico, and in light of Sam Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch (1969), Vera Cruz has become quite a curiosity piece. Ernest Borgnine, Charles Bronson, and Jack Elam play character roles here that are similar to their much more prominent roles a decade later. What would happen if we took the classic cowboy herofrom one of the hundreds of pre–Vietnam era movies (say, any of the Western characters Gary Cooper plays elsewhere) and place him in the ruthless no-law-but-that-of-power environment of Mexico (or a similar non-U.S.setting) just after the Civil War, perhaps during the reign of Maximilian I? What might happen is what does happen in this film. Gary Cooper and Burt Lancaster played ruthless mercenaries willing to fight for whichever side of the revolution—Juaristas or Maximilian’s regime—is willing to pay the highest price. Neither side matters. Neither Benjamin Trane (Cooper) nor Joe Erin (Lancaster) has a shred of moral integrity. The one normative character is probably Nina (Montiel). Vera Cruz is the equivalent of a 1950s spaghetti Western. One problem complicating this common interpretation is that Robert Aldrich probably intended his original audience to feel that Trane (a former Confederate officer) is supposed to be admirable. After all, he has fled south of the border because his side lost the war. It is difficult, of course, for 21st-century viewers to accept that interpretation.