As to style, he added, “Aldrich’s direction is a little showy and full of effects. Whatever the truth behind the process, it did not stop François Truffaut devoting most of his 1955 review of the film to discussing the “ingenuity” of the screenplay which he called “a painstakingly constructed mechanism of weights and balances like a Swiss watchworks.” What Truffaut marveled at was the screenplay’s classical perfection: the harmony of its parts with the whole, its narrative symmetries, and sustained control of rhyming elements. I’m not sure that’s the right way to work. Vera Cruz was total improvisation because the script was always finished about five minutes before we shot it, and we’d sit right down and work it out and then shoot it as we went along. Webb are offically credited for the screenplay, Aldrich has pointed out that: Though Chase lays no claim to the screenplay beyond its first draft – it was soon to pass into the hands of others- Vera Cruz shares with his other credits the “journey” narrative form and the theme of the uneasy alliance between two men. He also wrote the south seas adventure His majesty O’Keefe, USA 1953, for Lancaster). Among his credits are: Red River, USA 1948 Winchester ’73, USA 1950 Bend of the river, USA 1952 The Far Country, USA 1955 – the last three for director Anthony Mann – and Man without a Star, USA 1955. (Chase was an exceptional writer of westerns. Hecht was half of Hecht-Lancaster Productions which had recently produced Aldrich’s first western Apache (USA 1954) starring Burt Lancaster (the other half of the Hecht-Lancaster company).Īccording to Chase, the first draft was tailored for Cooper and Lancaster who had both agreed to star in the film on the basis of the story treatment. ![]() According to Chase it was “a hell of a story” and he “went down to Mexico to write it for Harold Hecht”. The actual historical incident the film is based on -Maximilian sending a carriage with a secret compartment full of gold and a countess on board from the capitol to Vera Cruz – was brought to Chase’s attention by producer William Alland. Both the story treatment and first draft of the screenplay were written by Borden Chase. The genesis of Vera Cruz is a tale in itself. As with much of Aldrich’s work, the term “baroque” has been used to describe the film’s style. Shot on location in Mexico in Superscope format, it is a film of considerable pictorial exuberance and epic form. Vera Cruz is a picaresque tale of two American soldiers of fortune in Mexico – Cooper and Burt Lancaster – who sell their services to the Emperor Maximilian, who needs mercenaries of few scruples to assure the safe passage of a gold shipment through rebel territory. And both, in their own way, star Gary Cooper. ![]() As coincidence would have it, Robert Aldrich’s western Vera Cruz and Robert Warshow’s seminal essay on the genre, “Movie chronicle: the westerner” both appeared in 1954.
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