Nas Margens do Rio Grande

I give this movie an E for effort - Mitchum plays an American who had escaped to Mexico in his youth after a violent episode and has grown up working for the local bandits controlling that part of the country. When sent to a US border town to negotiate a weapons deal, he breaks his leg and spends enough time in he US to realize he could make a life for himself with a brighter future - of course things go wrong. Based on a novel by Tom Lea, a forgotten writer of westerns, and staring along with Robert Mitchum in the romantic triangle is Gary Merrill as the local cavalry boss and Julie London as his unhappy wife. What makes it all interesting is the fact that the movie never quite "jells"- Mitchum tries his best against a cast of grade B actors and his performance mostly works. The worst performance is from Julie London who not only is dressed incongruously but looks and acts like a robot. The scenery is spectacular and is the winner in this movie. Add the use of over the top music, and this movie presages the Spaghetti Western.

I'd seen some good things about this one, but I was largely disappointed in "The Wonderful Country." First off, I applaud Robert Mitchum for stretching here: he plays a white Missourian raised in Mexico, his accent and even his posture a departure for Mitchum. The problem is, it just doesn't work. (That accent sure comes and goes!) The bigger problem is an unfocused (and rather hard to follow) screenplay that has Mitchum's Martin Brady running guns into Texas for the Mexican Castro family, recuperating there after a fall from his horse, then, after he kills a man, escaping back over the Rio Grande into Mexico. There's a spark with a married woman (Julie London's dissatisfied army wife, Helen Colton), meetings with rival Castro brothers... and, well, some more stuff which doesn't add up to quite enough in the end. Whether due to the accents and/or the sound recording, I found a significant amount of the dialogue simply hard to understand, and the story difficult to follow. But it also felt more than a little unfocused and rather dramatically inert, so that I found myself bored, which is one of the worst things I might say about a movie. Overall, maybe still worth a look for fans of classic Westerns, but mostly as a curiosity--an ambitious, if not exactly interesting, failure. (The Movie Czar 8/19/19)

This offbeat 1959 western stars the laconic Robert Mitchum as gunslinger Martin Brady, a Texas outlaw and outcast who fled to his adopted country Mexico as a youth. He works for the corrupt Castro brothers of whom he finds out much too late that he's just a pawn they move about their chessboard (Northern Mexico) as they please.

The film's major flaw is the narrative...it's a bit jumpy in spots but may have fallen victim studio intervention. Some characters seem to enter briefly, to be seen no more or are underdeveloped. Julie London's Helen Colton seems to fall victim to that. She's an ex dance hall girl (I believe), now a 'respected' wife of Major Colton (Gary Merrill) who engages in an affair with Brady out of pure lust.

But Brady...who's growing older and wearier it seems before our eyes, sees her as his redemption. His guns have cost him heavily, he has no family or lover or even respect. All he has is Mexico and that has betrayed him too. If you're expecting an action packed, shoot them up...this is not for you.

There are elements here we see in later films...we get a taste of Mexican culture, which Brady identifies more with than America, that we see in The Magnificent Seven and The Wild Bunch. And Paul Newman's John Russell in Hombre, mirrors Brady here. All are men without countries, men who cling to a culture or code American society shuns.

The locations, photography and music (Alex North) all help create an atmosphere of majestic isolation. And the inclusion of black Buffalo soldiers is all too rare in westerns, even today.

As one reviewer stated earlier, it could have been more. But there's still a lot here.

Mitchum is an assassin in the employ of Mexican mafia/government, and London is the wife of an American major. He becomes involved in Mexican civil disputes and decides to extricate himself too late.

The script brings the characters to life and reveals themes of self-loathing battling the ego in an extraordinary but low-key manner. The character performances are all convincing with the exception of a slight case of oversincerity on London's part. Gorgeous location filming in the deserts and in a Mexican town shot from a hilltop. The action scenes are pretty routine, but they and pretty much everything else is handled in a fairly realistic style, which adds greatly to the film's appeal.

So many times the title of the movie misleads the viewer. Not in this case. The title "Wonderful Country" perfectly describes this movie. The desert photography and imagery of frontier Texas and Old Mexico is almost overwhelming.

With a few exceptions, I have never been a Robert Mitchum fan, but this role brings out those qualities in him that have always attracted the fans. When commenting on his acting ability, he once said, "I only know two ways to act. With or without a horse." This is a great example of how to act with a horse. As a matter of fact, one of his co-stars in this movie IS his horse.

The story somewhat routine. Mitchum flees across the Rio Grande as a youngster after killing the man who killed his father. There he becomes a pistolero in the employ of a couple of corrupt brothers who control that part of Mexico. On a gun buying trip north across the border, he is thrown by his horse and is unable to return to Mexico. While in Texas he meets and falls for the wife of the military governor played by Julie London, in probably her only significant role. As he recovers, he is involved in another shooting and finally escapes back to Mexico, where he is falls out of favor with his patrons for losing the guns.

It isn't the story that makes this movie. It's the photography. It's the musical score and Mariachi orchestration. It's the touching performances of all the principal players. It is a BIG movie. The dusty majesty and corruption of Old Mexico along with the personal imagery of everyday life is riviting. In my opinion, this movie rates right up there with other Western giants like: Shane, The Searchers, Stagecoach, and a half dozen others. This is a movie that would be best seen on the big screen. Do it - if you ever get the chance.