Resgate de Sangue

There is more irony in this film than ten Shakespearean plays.. The film stars John Garfield and Jennifer Jones as two socialist rebels in 1933 Cuba. Historically, this revolt was known as the Sergeants Revolt, an alliance of sergeants and university students (with two different agendas). This bizarre revolt was successful in overthrowing the Fascist government of Quesada, and was replaced with that wild-eyed Socialist, Batista......that's right folks, the same Batista that became a fascist himself for the next 25 years and was a puppet of the American political machine. Oddly enough, three years later, Viva Zapata, with Marlon Brando, would mirror the same type of revolution in Mexico, with the same bizarre results.

The film is above average in suspense, and has a hell-raising conclusion, but it is the eerily feeling that we have seen something like this before (in 1959?) that keeps our interest in the film. A clear example of how history repeats itself.

"We were strangers" is considered a minor film among all Huston's masterpieces of the era:"treasure of the Sierra Madre" "Key Largo" "Asphalt jungle'' or "African Queen" .But many of this director's works are sleepers :"a walk with love and death" "Heaven knows mister Allison" or " Reflections in a golden eye" -which was an accurate rendition of McCullers' novel- are good examples ,sometimes more praised abroad than in America.

"We were strangers " is in the center of Huston's work:one of his permanent features was failure ("treasure" "asphalt" "misfits" ).the heroes of "strangers" are in a way ,misfits:they do not mix with the people and they do not feel that history is moving faster than they do.Forget the political background which may seem,to some,naive and vague :sometimes we wonder whether the heroes themselves are believing in what they are doing:hear this little ditty one of them sings as a leitmotiv ("we are digging all day,we are digging all night" "We were strangers" shows Huston's fascination for death: it would reappear in the overlooked "walk with love and death" ,in the dance macabre at the beginning of " under the volcano" and it is even more glaring in the director's final opus "the dead' where one of the characters ,still alive,appears on her deathbed.

Fighting against the tyrants is one good thing:doing so by digging a tunnel to get to a graveyard to kill one of the men of the dictatorship,Huston challenges realism!"there are two parts in the cemetery,says Jones ,one for the poor,one for the rich" even in death...

Jones ,some kind of romantic passionnaria (the part was tailor made for her- and Garfield an idealist American are part of the odd couples who are numerous in Huston's work:"African queen" "Heaven knows..." or "Roots of heaven" or "the Barbarian and the geisha" or "Annie" or...you name it...

a Huston which should not sink into oblivion....

Dealing with Cuban revolutionaries a few years before Castro, the story line is tough, thoughtful, ironic. Jones(especially good as China Valdez) and Garfield are well teamed. Roland provides humor and bravado in a performance(one of his best)that balances the pace of the film's drama and action. The Mexican and American supporting players are all on the mark, a pleasure to watch. Huston directs with a consistent, steady hand; with knowledge and empathy in canvassing territory not easily accessed by the war weary now grown complacent audiences of 1949.

Can anyone tell me where I can find a copy of this? I haven't seen it in thirty years, and if it is half as good as I remember, this is a must-see! What's up with Columbia holding back their classics? The Reckless Moment, made the same year (1949) by Columbia is also unavailable. These are major films directed by, respectively, John Huston and Max Ophuls, starring the likes of Jennifer Jones, John Garfield, Gilbert Roland, Joan Bennett, and James Mason. The Reckless Moment was recently remade decently as The Deep End, but it still doesn't compare. If anyone knows where I can get We Were Strangers, please post it here. Thanks, movie lovers!

The part of a fiery revolutionary in 1933 Cuba seems tailor made for John Garfield. Both his politics and screen persona mesh nicely in the role of Nick Fenner for him in We Were Strangers. As for his lack of Hispanic accent, we are told that he is of mixed Cuban and American parentage. I'm glad Garfield didn't try an accent, he looked downright silly doing one as Porfirio Diaz in Juarez.

John Huston directed We Were Strangers and even second drawer Huston is better than first drawer of most directors. The film is about a really far out plot for a Coup d'etat against President Gerardo Machado of Cuba in 1933. Garfield has sold them one a plan to assassinate the president and his entire cabinet by means of a bomb at a funeral internment. As it happens Jennifer Jones's house is located across from Havana's main cemetery. The idea is to first kill a right-wing Senator and then when the funeral takes place and the deceased is interred at the family mausoleum, to blow up the place as the president and a lot of top bigwigs are sure to attend.

The scheme involves tunneling from Jen's house to the mausoleum and We Were Strangers starts to resemble The Great Escape at this point. Jen's cooperative because her brother was killed by Machado's secret police, but something terribly unforeseen spoils things and the assassins are forced to flee.

In fact the something that is unforeseen should have been foreseen and Garfield should have come up with a better idea. But the drama of this film is the tension of these conspirators working together in close quarters and we the audience getting to know them. We Were Strangers at first, but they all become comrades during the shared experience of conspiracy. Besides John Garfield and Jennifer Jones, the other in the plot are Gilbert Roland, Wally Cassell, and David Bond.

Best performance in the film by far though is that of Pedro Armendariz as the secret police lieutenant. Huston might have seen Armendariz in a similar role in John Ford's The Fugitive which was set in Mexico. It was a good stroke of typecasting then because Armendariz is a truly hateful figure.

I looked up Gerardo Machado who was the president of Cuba at the time and he was overthrown in 1933 but not by these guys. Wikipedia describes him as an equal opportunity tyrant who had all factions hating him by 1933. He started out as a fighter and youngest general in the Cuban war for independence against Spain in the 1890s. But last year's freedom fighter has a way of turning into today's tyrant.

We Were Strangers in the Huston career comes between Key Largo and The Asphalt Jungle, both better films, but this one while the assassination plot is far fetched is carried along by the skilled direction of a fine group of players.