7.2 | / 10 |
Users | 4.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.0 | |
Overall | 3.3 |
During the Mexican Rebellion of 1866, an unsavory group of adventurers from the US are hired by the forces of Emperor Maximiliano to escort a countess to Vera Cruz.
Starring: Gary Cooper, Burt Lancaster, Denise Darcel, Cesar Romero, Sara MontielWestern | 100% |
Adventure | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.99:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.00:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Mono (48kHz, 24-bit)
Spanish: Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono (256 kbps)
French: DTS 2.0 Mono
Italian: DTS 2.0
German: DTS 2.0
Catalan: DTS 2.0
English SDH, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Spanish, Danish, Dutch, Norwegian, Swedish
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region free
Movie | 3.0 | |
Video | 3.5 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 0.5 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
When Vera Cruz opened on Christmas Day, 1954, New York Times critic Bosley Crowther called it “a pretty atrocious film, loaded with meaningless violence and standard horse opera clichés. There are not many ways of hurting people that are missed in this sadistic show, from kicking and slapping and slicing to running them down on horseback and pounding them with poles. As a matter of fact, the whole picture appears to be designed as a mere exhibition of how wicked and vicious men can be.” I’m quoting Crowther at length because his reaction was not entirely unjustified. Vera Cruz did mark a turning point in the western genre. Early films about gunslingers and cowboys tended to be moralistic tales with easily identifiable good guys and bad guys. Honor, bravery, virtue, and duty were the big thematic touchstones. Where Vera Cruz differs is that it was one of the first westerns with a bonafide anti-hero, a bad-to-the-bone protagonist motivated by greed and self-preservation instead of goodness and sacrifice. This blazed the trail for later films like Sergio Leone’s “Dollars” trilogy and Sam Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch, violent westerns where the good guys weren’t always, you know, good guys. While Crowther is mostly right when he complained Vera Cruz is filled with “standard horse opera clichés”—on the whole, it’s fairly average as far as westerns go—the film is worth revisiting, if only for the dynamic pairing of its two leads, Burt Lancaster and Gary Cooper.
Partners, Enemies
The fact is, Vera Cruz is never going to look especially sharp or clean. Shot on Superscope—a precursor to Super35 that's sometimes called the "poor man's CinemaScope"—the image is exceptionally grainy and blotchy, which inevitably leads to a lack of truly fine detail. In his 1954 review of the film, Crowther even pointed out that the "scenery might look pretty if the fuzziness of Superscope and the blobbiness of the color were not offensive to the eye." MGM's 1080p/AVC-encoded transfer of the film is about as good as can be expected, then, and it's admirable that the studio resisted the temptation to slather the picture with digital noise reduction in an attempt to lessen film grain. For all its source-related splotchiness, the transfer is natural, with no DNR, edge enhancement, or other forms of tweaking. And to be fair, the film looks better here than it ever has. Even if the image is never tack sharp, it benefits inherently from the high definition upgrade, with more noticeable textures and a tighter overall look. The film's dusty color palette is as rich as it needs to be, with occasional splashes of bright color, like the bright greens, reds, and yellows of Maximilian's troop's uniforms. Black levels are plenty deep enough too, and contrast is even-keeled. Burt Lancaster's white chompers, of course, gleam spectacularly. Finally, there are no compression problems or encode issues.
The quality of the film's DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 track will be familiar to anyone who routinely watches mid-century westerns. That is, this mix shows its age with flattened dynamics and somewhat tinny highs, but otherwise it's perfectly acceptable and exactly what you'd expect from a film of this vintage. MGM probably could've wrangled a 5.1 mix out of the audio elements—panning gunfire and trotting horse hooves into the rear channels, etc.— but I'm more than happy with the original mix, and I suspect most western fans will be too. For what it's worth, the effects—while dated—have more than enough punch, especially gunshots, which pop off loudly. Hugo Friedhofer's score sounds wonderful too, even if it lacks a really memorable theme. Dialogue, without exception, is easy to understand. The disc also includes a variety of dub and subtitle options.
Unfortunately, the only bonus on the disc is a theatrical trailer (1080p, 3:00).
Westerns got a whole lot grittier in the 1960s—with more explicit violence, harsher heroes, and an undercurrent of moral ambiguity—and Vera Cruz can be seen as a precursor to this sudden shift in tone and outlook. Outside of its historical context, the film is a fairly average western, but it is entertaining, thanks largely to its memorable cast. MGM's Blu-ray does the film justice, but do be aware that the film's picture quality has always been as uneven as the morality of its main characters. Recommended for armchair cowboys only.
1966
1961
1952
1966
1970
El Perdido
1961
1967
1970
1959
1959
Limited Edition to 3000
1955
Il mercenario / A Professional Gun
1968
Limited Edition to 3000 - SOLD OUT
1955
Limited Edition
1965
1972
Fox Studio Classics
1969
1970
2019
1961
2016