|
"An uneasy stepchild in a new family" summarizes California freshly annexed into the U.S., a darkening Mexican garden is what William Wellman sees. Joaquin Murrieta, a hearty fellow dragged into brutal legend, Warner Baxter dusting off his In Old Arizona accent. Farming alongside the wife (Margo) is his ideal, dissipated by prospecting Americanos. "When gold is found, God is lost," invaded home and slain love change a man, "I will kill everyone." The vengeful spree of a man proud enough to march into the sheriff's office and complain about his wanted poster, the birth of a Hidden Valley community with the cheerful outlaw (J. Carrol Naish). The señorita met during the church robbery (Ann Loring) takes issue with the word banditry: "That is what they call it. I call it the only way to get back that which was ours." A blunt elegy to anticipate the revisionist Western, and to elucidate Wellman's uncredited work in Viva Villa! The militant compadre (George Regas) lives and dies by the point of his knife, the one friend among the "gringos asquerosos" (Bruce Cabot) ends up leading the posse. "A dignified appeal instead of useless force" is a pipe dream in the land of violence begetting violence, the aggrieved cowboys stepping out of a saloon to almost casually become a hanging mob embody a rough-draft of The Ox-Bow Incident. The beginning of the end is a bride shot during a stagecoach ambush, jingling spurs in the cemetery provide the closing echoes. "There is no happiness and no peace of mind in revenge." "La Golondrina" sung before the shootout points up the link to Peckinpah, and influences also include Mann's Devil's Doorway and Aldrich's Apache. With Soledad Jiménez, Carlos de Valdez, Eric Linden, Edgar Kennedy, Harry Woods, and Paul Hurst. In black and white.
--- Fernando F. Croce |