Vera Cruz (1954) on Netflix
Approved19541h 34mAdventureWestern
After the Civil War, ex-Confederate soldier Ben Trane seeks mercenary work in Mexico and joins gunman Joe Erin. Emperor Maximilian hires them to escort Countess Marie Duvarre to Veracruz.
- Netflix3.8/5
- IMDb7.0/1013,173 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes81%
Trailer
Plot summary
When the Franco-Mexican War is underway, ex-Confederate soldier Ben Trane travels to Mexico in search of mercenary work. He joins forces with Joe Erin, a younger gunslinger at the head of a gang of cutthroats. The Marquis Henri de Labordere recruits the two of them for Emperor Maximilian, who offers $25,000 for escorting the Countess Marie Duvarre to the city of Veracruz. Trane bargains the emperor up to double that. The road runs through country held by the Juaristas, the nationalist forces fighting to overthrow Maximilian, and General Ramírez commands their army. Trane's sweetheart Nina urges the men to fight for the rebels instead, while the marquis presses them to serve the emperor.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Vera Cruz (1954)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Before Gary Cooper took the role of Ben Trane in Vera Cruz, Clark Gable advised him not to work with Burt Lancaster, fearing the younger actor would upstage him.
- Robert Aldrich said he and Burt Lancaster had a less amicable relationship than they anticipated on Vera Cruz, because Lancaster, until he directed The Kentuckian, thought he was going to be a director and did not welcome someone else's directorial notions.
- The film's amoral characters and cynical attitude to violence, including a scene where Burt Lancaster's character threatens to murder child hostages, were considered shocking at the time and influenced later Westerns such as The Magnificent Seven and Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch. Its influence on Sergio Leone's work led some critics to call it "the proto-Spaghetti Western".
- Vera Cruz was the first production to use the SuperScope widescreen process, which was designed to achieve anamorphic prints from standard flat 35mm negatives.
- According to Eli Wallach, Mexican authorities were appalled at the unflattering depiction of their country, so later Hollywood productions, including The Magnificent Seven, were thoroughly overseen by state censors.
- Mari Blanchard was meant to play the female lead in Vera Cruz and Harold Hecht signed to borrow her from Universal, but a clause forbidding her to appear on television, which Hecht disagreed with, meant Denise Darcel was cast instead.
- Burt Lancaster recalled that Gary Cooper demanded rewrites to his character in Vera Cruz to make him less morally-gray and more conventionally heroic.
- Filming on Vera Cruz began in February 1954, and the picture became the first American film production to be shot entirely in Mexico.
