Vera Cruz

Action! - The Postwar Hollywood 3: Reworking Aldrich Aldrich goes from such a lackluster Western to one that will go on to influence much violent Westerns and pretty much Sergio Leone’s films in the genre. And you don’t have to wait very long to notice all the…

Rafael "Mister Movie" Jovine

“you never can trust nobody no more.” Released in 1954, Robert Aldrich’s Vera Cruz was a new kind of western – not a mythic saga about cowboys and righteous codes, but a sharp, cynical pivot away from the genre’s classical morality, exposing the corruption at the heart of…

Tim Fehrenbach

perfect, perfect, absolutely perfect, has the dignity and craft of a classic western with the rugged anarchism of a revisionist western, the best of both worlds, with loads of character actors and future stars in the cast: jack elam, charles bronson, ernest borgnine, henry…

comrade_yui

Was worried at first that Lancaster was going to out act Gary Cooper, whose working in High Noon territory despite the film being quite the opposite, but soon levels into a fascinating duo. Could make a great double feature with Duck, You Sucker!, as both are films about…

Peter Labuza

Often cited as one of the premiere precursors to the Spaghetti Western and the movement toward gritty, ruthless Westerns that would define the genre henceforth, it is clear that Vera Cruz helped initiate the blurring of lines between good and evil in Western protagonists.…

Colin the dude

“Ben Trane. I don’t trust him. He likes people, and you can never count on a man like that.” After the American Civil War, mercenaries travel to Mexico to fight in their revolution for money. The former soldier and gentleman Benjamin Trane meets the gunman and killer Joe…

WestyMovieCrypt

"Vera Cruz" is a tight, 90-minute Western full of character, intrigue, and action. By flirting with nihilism, Robert Aldrich's film points the way towards the spaghetti Westerns to come, with Burt Lancaster as a proto-Man in Black. But, shot on location in Mexico, what…

HKFanatic

war is over and men have nothing to make sense of their life anymore. so go south, make money they say. a savvy, full white ivories showing, smirky Burt Lancaster meets Cary Cooper, who is apparently supposed to be ambiguous but actually being more of an all american hero…

shookone

Vera Cruz is a good but not great Western in my opinion. It’s short, mostly entertaining and has some impressive action set-pieces. The cast is good but while I love Cooper and Lancaster individually, I don’t think they make for a very compelling screen pairing. There are…

Gregor Kreyca