VERA CRUZ

1954/Director: Robert Aldrich/ Writers: Roland Kibbee, James R. Webb

Cast: Gary Cooper, Burt Lancaster, Denise Darcel, Cesar Romero, Sara Montiel, George Macready, Jack Elam, Ernest Borgnine, Charles Bronson

I love a good Western and some of my favorites types of westerns have to be what I call the Mexican Westerns. These sorts of westerns became popular during the sixties and typically featured renegade mercenary types from America who travel into Mexico for purposes that usually revolve around nothing more than money and gold. The backdrop is one of the many periods of revolution in Mexico during the late 19th century and into the early 20th century. Typically there is some sort of transformation in the motives of the mercenaries towards the end of the film away from gold and wealth to some sort of cause, or to something the men once believed in before life made them cynical and ruthless. The best examples are films like The Wild Bunch, The Magnificent Seven and The Professionals. One could also include the handful of legendary and influential Westerns by Sergio Leone and many other Spaghetti or Italian-Westrns as well some lone cowboy films – as opposed to a band of mercenaries –like Two Mules for Sister Sara with Clint Eastwood and Valdez is Coming with Burt Lancaster. While 1954’s Robert Aldrich (What Ever Happened to Baby Jane, Hush… Hush, Sweet Charolette, The Dirty Dozen, Flight of the Phoenix)  film Vera Cruz is not as violent or cynical as Sam Peckinpah’s classic of slow motion blood spatter it can still regarded as an early transitional western and the first of the Mexican Westerns of the sixties. The action takes place during the period of Mexican revolt against the French during the brief and troubled reign of Emperor Maximillian. Seems Austrian born Maxillian was none to keen on heading off to Mexico to manage the situation there but its hard to say no to repeated requests by Napoleon III. And he had good reasons for reservations since his short reign was marked by constant revolt by the rebels led by Benito Jaurez (the Jauristas) and his eventual overthrow and execution by firing squad. Most of these films do not try to be historical dramas and instead use the backdrop of Meixico’s civil unrest as a flexible vehicle for the conflicts between the gringo fortune seekers and whoever stands in the way of their loot and booty.

MORE ABOUT VERA CRUZ HERE >>

THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY (Il Buono, il Brutto, il Cattivo)

1966/Director: Sergio Leone/Writers: Luciano Vincenzoni, Sergio Leone

Cast/ Eli Wallach, Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef, Aldo Giuffrè, Luigi Pistilli, Rada Rassimov, Enzo Petito

I was living in San Antonio Texas where my dad was stationed at Lackland Air Force Base when The Good, the Bad and the Ugly was released. We all packed ourselves in his Valiant station wagon and went to the Valley-Hi Drive to see the film and it left an impression on me that was to linger for the rest of my life. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is a film that falls into a very narrow category for me. Films that I feel are not only great films but films worthy of deeper introspection and multiple viewings and each viewing seems as fresh as the first one. It is a film I am not even comfortable commenting on here. There are a few others as well that would make me shudder to do a post here at my humble site about: Apocalypse Now, The Last Picture Show, Dr. Zhivago, Lord Jim and even Blade Runner and other films of the same caliber that have left such a lasting impact on me that I simply feel unworthy to expound on them in any fashion. And is another reason and that is that films like The Good, the Bad and the Ugly and Apocalypse Now have been critiqued and reviewed to death on the net. I usually try to select more obscure and little viewed films of an often trashier variety here at the Café to pander. Also I try not to be too pretentious with my comments and speculations. I will leave all that to the experts. Certainly many films deserve deeper philosophical reflection but I am not the sort of person to publicly delve into all that sort of thing. In simple terms I like to proceed with my foot as much out of my mouth as possible. But when I watch a film like this one I am usually transported to another world all together. So with that as an introduction let’s take a look at this western masterpiece by maestro Sergio Leone.

MORE OF THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY HERE >>

I am in the middle of rewatching the Vampire Lovers and felt the need to do a quick post on the queen of sexy lesbo vamps, Ingrid Pitt. There are some mythic elements to the life of Ingrid Pitt that is sometimes conflicting, depending on what source you are reading. There is the fantastic story of how she was born Ingoushka Petrov in 1937, of Polish parents, while her mother was being transported to a concentration camp in Germany during the war. Another source keeps the concentration camp story but gives the date of 1943 for her birth, while yet another source claims Pitt herself lists her birth date as November of 1945, when the war was well over for Germany as well as Japan and the camps were abolished.

MORE INGRID PITT HERE >>

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I recievied an invitation from both Chick Young at Trash Aesthetics and Gilligan over at Retrospace to participate in something called a “meme”, but I am so out of touch I have no clue what that is (but that has never stopped me from getting involved before). Seems it originated from Piper and Brian over at Lazy Eye Theatre blog (a couple of the more active LAMBers) and there have been good fantasy film festivals so far by Chick, Gilligan and Barbarella apologist Becca at No Smoking in the Skull Cave. I do not know if Tal at Taliesen Meets the Vampires has contributed as of this moment, but I will plug his excellent site anyway, free of charge. The rules (as laid down by the crew at the Lazy Eye site) are:

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Brown eyed and demure brunette Mara Corday eventually became most remembered by her fans for her roles in three Universal science fiction, giant bug movies all made towards the end of her short acting career. Those films, Tarantula (1955), The Black Scorpion and The Giant Claw (1957) were slight departures from her previous roles which exploited her smoldering almost ethnic sex appeal such as Man Without a Star with Kirk Douglas and A Day of Fury. She acted in films for Paramount, Republic and Universal for only seven years before quitting altogether to become a house wife and mother with actor Richard Long who was most famous for his TV role in The Big Valley.

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Born Marilyn Watts in 1932 in Santa Monica California, Mara Corday was not only a actress whose career seemed to taking off just as quit, but was also one of the most popular and most photographed models of her time. She eventually would be Playboy playmate for October 1958. She did mostly the cheesecake pinup style photos of the time and some of the spicier black stocking type as well.

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