Garden of Evil

This is a hugely underrated western as eccentric and individual as anything by Peckinpah or Boetticher. One of the early Cinemascope adventures from Fox, GARDEN OF EVIL has a superb cast at the top of their respective games, fantastic special effects, wonderful widescreen photography, and one of house composer Bernard Herrmann's very best scores (which is saying a mouthful). Best of all, it showcases an utterly unique screenplay full of strange, world-weary philosophy that sounds like Hemingway on acid. (Ironically, the chief writer, Fred Frieberger, is best known for producing the third and weakest season of the original STAR TREK -- notorious for its bad writing). At any rate, check this one out the first chance you get. Years of bad pan & scan showings on TV have destroyed its reputation -- but if you ask me, GARDEN OF EVIL is a gem waiting to be discovered, if not a cult waiting to be born!

A trio of American drifters formed by a veteran ex-sheriff named Hooker (Gary Cooper) , a card player named Fiske(Richard Widmark) and a gunfighter , Luke Daly (Cameron Mitchell) going to California and marooned in rural Mexico are recruited by a beautiful woman named Leah Fuller (Susan Hayward) who offers a strong reward to rescue her husband named John Fuller (Hugh Marlowe) from vengeful Apaches . Fuller is wounded in a gold mine on a territory occupied by Indians. The three adventurers accompany the woman , but for the trip their feelings are turning .

Leisurely and deliberately paced , at times thrilling and tense classic Western whose plot follows hazardous trails , though sometimes is slow moving. Based on a story by F. Freiberger and Tunberg was filmed in Mexican scenarios , for that reason play some Mexican actors as Victor Manuel Mendoza and Rita Moreno as gorgeous dancer in her film debut. It's considerably boosted by the main cast formed by a perfect trio as Cooper , Hayward and Widmark who add stature to the screenplay . The amusing results to be the guessing in which order the main roles get killed off . This was the only Gary Cooper film shot in Cinemascope and his partenaire was Susan Hayward , both of them had formerly played when were very young ¨Beau Geste¨(1939) . Colorful cinematography perfectly remastered by Milton Krasner and Jorge Sthal , spectacularly filmed on Mexican landscapes , though also contains some matte paintings of the cliffs . Impressive and suspenseful musical score by the classic Bernard Herrmann , Alfred Hitchcock's usual . ¨Garden of evil¨failed in Box office and did't obtain success as public as reviews ; however , being today best considered .

The motion picture is professionally directed by Henry Hathaway . Henry was a craftsman and expert on Western genre as he proved in ¨Shoot out , True grit , Five card stud , Nevada Smith , Sons of Katie Elder , How the West was won , Rawhide , Brigham Young , Buffalo Stampede¨ and of course ¨Garden of evil¨. Rating : nice Western that will appeal to Gary Cooper fans.

Some people complained about the Indian's role.I think that the first thing to bear in mind is that this western is more a fable than a realist story:the Indians ,whom we almost never see -a little more than the Arabs in Ford's "the lost patrol" or Duvivier's "la bandera",but not much more-:they are silhouettes in the landscape .The real danger is man's endless greed who ,were the earth made of gold,would die for a handful of it.That's what Gary Cooper's character says.

I think that Hathaway's 1957 movie "Legend of the Lost" is more convincing than "Garden" .This search for a treasure in the desert does not need an outside threat:no hostile tribe here.Men are finally on their own and madness is around the corner.

Try to see both movies in a row,mainly if you do not think that Henry Hathaway is an auteur.He is.

If you have never seen Susan Hayward, Gary Cooper and Richard Widmark together, this will be a treat! First of all, the story works....

Next, the lines work and the performances are perfect: Susan Hayward's voice is the feminine equal of the stoic, knowing and forceful sound of Gary Cooper's voice: those voices are the trademarks of both of their film careers, and in this movie the interplay of their vocal tracks are very significant, definitive performances in both their careers....just listen to their lines and you will appreciate the fact that this movie is one of the high points of the dramatic art of two great performers...

You will also enjoy the visuals in this movie....Hayward is sexy, and backed by beautiful vistas. Cooper is strong and incorruptable, as are the stark and clear views that back his appearances....

Richard Widmark creates an excellent "gambling" persona...with a bit of backbone.

If you haven't seen it...DO!

If you like it, check out "The Big Sky" starring Kirk Douglas...it is black and white if I remember rightly...but well worth checking out!

While Cooper's career spanned ninety-two feature films, in which he appeared as everything from a masked Cossack to an Italian Renaissance explorer, a foreign legionnaire, a baseball great and countless sophisticated romantic adventurers, he is best remembered as a Western star...

'Garden of Evil' tells the story of three American adventurers (Cooper, Widmark, and Mitchell) who are stranded in a Mexican fishing village after the ship that was taking them to California is put out of commission...

All three were headed for the Californian gold rush... Instead, they are now in Puerto Miguel, approached by a woman in trouble, a Spanish-speaking American woman, Leah Fuller (Susan Hayward), who offers to pay them handsomely if they escort her through hazardous Indian territory to rescue her husband who is hurt and trapped in a gold mine up there in the hills...

The mention of gold makes them agree and, together with a Mexican macho man named Vicente (Victor Manuel Mendoza), begin their long, arduous journey...

Emotions become tense when Leah discovers Vicente marking trails and, later, finds herself fighting off the crude advances of one of the three soldiers of fortune...

When the group arrives at what the Indians call the Garden of Evil, a sacred grounds atop a high mountain where the mine is located, they found Fuller (Hugh Marlowe) still alive, but embittered and with a broken leg...

The group's troubles grow when they discover they are in danger, practically harassed by savage Indians...

"Garden of Evil" was Cooper first motion picture in CinemaScope... Along the way, he proves himself a powerful leader with a commanding performance...

Susan Hayward kept her thoughts and her affections pretty much of a secret, remaining skeptical about her motives... This was her second movie with Gary Cooper since her appearance in William A. Wellman's superb, high adventure 'Beau Geste,' and her third with director Hathaway...

Richard Widmark proceeds his ways of gambling with a neat line in cynical cracks; Cameron Mitchell fails in his unwelcome sexual advances; Hugh Marlowe uses a variety of both conscious and unconscious processes to deal with his angry feelings; Victor Manuel Mendoza gets intensely angry after being hit; and Rita Moreno delights the environment with her sweet voice...

Hathaway was one of the great Hollywood veterans still in harness, a versatile director whose Westerns have been as variable in quality as his other films... Filmed on location in Mexico, his 'Garden of Evil' is a beautiful spectacle to behold... The vistas are strikingly clear and vivid... The film is a well-done character piece, concentrating on the relationships of the characters as on the evil influence of gold...