In Mexico, a young boxer uses his winnings to buy guns to avenge his family's murder.In Mexico, a young boxer uses his winnings to buy guns to avenge his family's murder.In Mexico, a young boxer uses his winnings to buy guns to avenge his family's murder.
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This film is never mentioned by the film historians when listing great sports films. Richard Conte was brilliant and made this adaptation of the great Jack London's "The Mexican" a true representation. The director and castings reflect the era of the Mexican revolution. I do not have a biography of Conte, but he must have been either a boxer or an athlete of some ability. Lee J. Cobb was equally brilliant. Why it is not aired or remains buried, is a mystery.
All long this excellent little social drama, I thought of John Garfield in the main lead character. But don't misundertand me, Richard Conte is excellent though, I would say as powerful, impressive, I mean for this film. Not for the whole Garfield career; Garfield was greater than Conte. That said, I did not know this director Herbert Kline, whose career was really short. This explains that. The movie is unfortunately too much predictable. That's not my all time favourite in terms of social drama, I guess that one or two decades before, starring Henry Fonda or Richard Barthelmess, it would have been better. With also a William Wellman behind the camera. It would have been a topic for him.
This isn't so much a boxing movie as a peasant rebelling against a cruel dictatorship movie. Richard Conte (who, at 42, was about 15 years too old for the role of Felipe Rivera) plays the peasant in question who flees to New Mexico to raise funds for the rebellion after his beloved is murdered by troops. The film is a clumsy amalgamation of two stories - Rivera's life as a peasant, and his attempts to raise money to buy guns for the rebellion through boxing - the former of which is sandwiched between the latter as an extended flashback. As always in this type of film all the peasants are decent noble types and all the troops are leering sadists.
Lee J. Cobb plays Durango, the heroic rebel leader and he isn't that great. He was called upon a few times in his career to portray latino types and, with his tendency to exaggerate the accents he was never convincing. In fact the film is fairly ordinary throughout and directed in a workmanlike manner by Herbert Kline (who also wrote), although the fight sequences are fairly good for the time. This is one for Conte completists only.
Lee J. Cobb plays Durango, the heroic rebel leader and he isn't that great. He was called upon a few times in his career to portray latino types and, with his tendency to exaggerate the accents he was never convincing. In fact the film is fairly ordinary throughout and directed in a workmanlike manner by Herbert Kline (who also wrote), although the fight sequences are fairly good for the time. This is one for Conte completists only.
As I watched "The Fighter", I enjoyed the movie very much. However, again and again, I kept asking myself "why did they change the original story so much?" as I watched. In a few cases, perhaps it made some sense...but often it just didn't...and I cannot understand why they didn't trust the original Jack London story ("The Mexican").
Richard Conte, of all people, stars as Felipe Rivera. Casting him and Lee J. Cobb as Durango just seemed weird. After all, they clearly were NOT Hispanic and had no trace of a Mexican accent. I am not saying this because I am Mr. Political Correctness...it's more that it really seemed unrealistic to have the pair playing Mexicans.
Rivera recently crossed the border from Mexico to El Paso, Texas. It turns out his village was wiped out by federal troops loyal to the dictator, Porfirio Diaz...President for Life in Mexico. Now he plans on working with other dissidents in Texas to help topple the regime. His greatest skill is his ability in the boxing ring and he boxes to fund the revolution.
As I mentioned above, a lot of details from the original story were changed...and in some case I had no idea why. For example, Rivera murders an evil General....but in the movie the victim is a Colonel and he's not killed by Rivera but shot by revolutionaries. Also, the reason for Rivera's village being wiped out was changed...perhaps because the production company thought it might seem 'left wing' to have them killed following a strike by employees. All I know is that I sure would have liked to have seen the original tale.
Now if you ignore the changes and weird casting, the film STILL is quite good....slightly better than the very low overall score listed for the movie on IMDB. Not great...but very good despite itself.
By the way, although it's not important, I noticed that when Rivera and the lady went to the shooting booth at the carnival, they never paid to play the game yet were given prizes after shooting. Not paying their dimes was an interesting tiny omission.
Richard Conte, of all people, stars as Felipe Rivera. Casting him and Lee J. Cobb as Durango just seemed weird. After all, they clearly were NOT Hispanic and had no trace of a Mexican accent. I am not saying this because I am Mr. Political Correctness...it's more that it really seemed unrealistic to have the pair playing Mexicans.
Rivera recently crossed the border from Mexico to El Paso, Texas. It turns out his village was wiped out by federal troops loyal to the dictator, Porfirio Diaz...President for Life in Mexico. Now he plans on working with other dissidents in Texas to help topple the regime. His greatest skill is his ability in the boxing ring and he boxes to fund the revolution.
As I mentioned above, a lot of details from the original story were changed...and in some case I had no idea why. For example, Rivera murders an evil General....but in the movie the victim is a Colonel and he's not killed by Rivera but shot by revolutionaries. Also, the reason for Rivera's village being wiped out was changed...perhaps because the production company thought it might seem 'left wing' to have them killed following a strike by employees. All I know is that I sure would have liked to have seen the original tale.
Now if you ignore the changes and weird casting, the film STILL is quite good....slightly better than the very low overall score listed for the movie on IMDB. Not great...but very good despite itself.
By the way, although it's not important, I noticed that when Rivera and the lady went to the shooting booth at the carnival, they never paid to play the game yet were given prizes after shooting. Not paying their dimes was an interesting tiny omission.
Richard Conte walks into the Maduro office just across the river from Mexico. He has been sent by the head of the guerillas, Lee J. Cobb. He has no proof, just his word; at first they think he may be a Diaz spy, so they set him to mopping the floor, and tell him he can't stay there at night, even though he says he has no money. He shows up the next day with twenty dollars, which he gives to the cause. Eventually Vanessa Brown gets his story from him. He is from a small village which the Federales have been taxing to death. Cobb showed up alone. They hid him, and the Federales killed everyone and burned the village. The money is from acting as a sparring partner at a local boxing gym.
Conte plays his role as angry as possible, with no words, just body language. Cobb plays his at his biggest, which is immense. Fortunately, Conte has a weapon on his side; the cameraman is James Wong Howe, and the boxing match at the end is as brutal as any put on the screen, long shots (using a body double for Conte, hunched over) and closeups of the two men's upper bodies, trading blows alternately. No one could shoot a fight in black and white like Howe.
It's from a Jack London story, "The Mexican." I probably read it almost fifty years ago, but have no memory of it. I expect I'll remember this movie.
Conte plays his role as angry as possible, with no words, just body language. Cobb plays his at his biggest, which is immense. Fortunately, Conte has a weapon on his side; the cameraman is James Wong Howe, and the boxing match at the end is as brutal as any put on the screen, long shots (using a body double for Conte, hunched over) and closeups of the two men's upper bodies, trading blows alternately. No one could shoot a fight in black and white like Howe.
It's from a Jack London story, "The Mexican." I probably read it almost fifty years ago, but have no memory of it. I expect I'll remember this movie.
Did you know
- ConnectionsVersion of Meksikanets (1956)
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- Also known as
- Borac
- Filming locations
- Mexico(village of Janitzio)
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- Runtime1 hour 18 minutes
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- 1.37 : 1
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