Vera Cruz

Gary Cooper and Burt Lancaster are American mercenaries in 19th-century Mexico looking to cash in on the revolution by selling their services to the highest bidder in Robert Aldrich's 1954 cynical south-of-the-border western. Lancaster is Joe Erin, a flamboyant pirate on horseback, grinning deviously throughout, while Cooper (who was aging out of leading man roles by this time) is Benjamin Trane, lean, laconic and grounded man—at least by comparison—with a sense of honor and morality. The pair meet cute—conning, robbing, and outwitting one another in a bit of one-upmanship that bonds them in mutual admiration—before teaming up to escort a royal convoy through the war-torn country. When they discover its secret stash of gold bullion, the men revert to their old ways, selling out anyone (even each other) who gets in the way of their taking the treasure for themselves. Played out as a seat-of-the-pants con game of shifting alliances and double crosses, Vera Cruz is a cheerfully ruthless tale that served as a veritable blueprint for the Italian spaghetti westerns of the 1960s. Aldrich, who has a real flair for turning scoundrels and opportunists into riveting characters, went on to work the same sort of magic on Kiss Me Deadly and The Dirty Dozen. Ernest Borgnine, Charles Bronson, Jack Elam, and George Macready costar in the rogues' gallery of supporting thugs. Recommended. (S. Axmaker)