Vera Cruz (1954)

Film: Vera Cruz (1954)

Stars: Gary Cooper, Burt Lancaster, Denise Darcel, Cesar Romero, Sara Montiel

Director: Robert Aldrich

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2023 Saturdays with the Stars series, we are looking at the Golden Age western, and the stars who made it one of the most enduring legacies of Classical Hollywood.  This month, our focus is on Gary Cooper: click here to learn more about Mr. Cooper (and why I picked him), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

I promised last week that I would talk this week about the personal relationships of Gary Cooper's life.  Cooper's personal life at this point has taken on a persona of its own.  Before his marriage in 1933 to actress Veronica Balfe (whom he would remain married to until his death in 1961), Cooper famously bedded half of Hollywood, including (allegedly) actresses Clara Bow, Carole Lombard, Marlene Dietrich, and most critically, actress Lupe Velez.  Velez, who at one point was the rare Latina leading lady of the Classical Hollywood Era, who killed herself after her career waned and she became pregnant while unmarried, is the source of the infamous (and cruel) urban legend that she died vomiting on a toilet.  In the decades since, there have been rumors that a rekindled romance with Cooper was the source of the baby, and his refusal to leave his wife & marry the devoutly Catholic Velez (who refused to get an abortion) was the reason that she killed herself.  Weirdly Velez isn't the only woman who has had her suicide associated with Cooper-costume designer Irene killed herself a year after Cooper's death, purportedly out of grief as the two had been having an affair.

A more substantiated Hollywood legend, and one that is associated bleakly with Cooper's memory, is his relationship with actress Patricia Neal.  While Cooper had (alleged) affairs throughout his marriage with actresses ranging from Ingrid Bergman to Grace Kelly, Neal publicly discussed the relationship, including the abortion that Cooper pressured her to have, and which she would later deeply regret, becoming an ardent supporter of the "Pro-Life" movement.  Another rumor about Cooper's personal life was that he was secretly bisexual, and his connection with actor Anderson Lawler, who was gay, is the name most frequently associated with these rumors.

(Spoilers Ahead) All of this is far more interesting than the movie we're discussing today, the 1954 western Vera Cruz, which happened in the wake of Cooper's second Oscar win for the western classic High Noon.  That film largely serves as a bookend to the success that the actor had had for 20+ years to that date, and also moved him into an era of diminishing returns as a star.  Vera Cruz is emblematic of the types of roles he would take during this time frame, frequently playing an older man competing with a younger figure or trying to rely upon his long-time reputation for "one last ride."  Here he is Ben Trane, who joins forces with the wily young gunslinger Joe Erin (Lancaster) to escort a countess (Darcel) to the city of Veracruz, Mexico, but along the way they realize they're also transporting $3 million in gold.  The film then proceeds to comic lengths to show how Joe & Ben will go about trying to backstab each other, with the more noble Ben winning out of the two.

The movie doesn't work for a couple of reasons.  For one, it's supposed to be funny, but it doesn't have enough jokes.  It's clear this was an early predecessor to the Spaghetti westerns of the late 1960's (which is one of my favorite eras in Hollywood, which made my antipathy toward this film disappointing), but it doesn't have the melodrama & stakes of those films.  Lancaster & Cooper also don't work together.  Neither of these two are actors I love, but together they don't balance at all-Lancaster has a tendency to overact in movies like this, while Cooper was usually dry, and needed costars who would let that shine through.  Together, Lancaster totally overpowers Cooper to the point where it feels like he's not in the movie, which is a problem since he's the hero.  Pairing Lancaster with someone with more charisma (like Clark Gable) or Cooper with someone more introspective (like Montgomery Clift) would've been better...or you could just watch Gable & Clift in The Misfits, a much better movie.