Santiago

I admit that this film is far from great, but it is entertaining enough to get you through a rainy night. Alan Ladd has good on screen chemistry with Lloyd Nolan and the two off screen friends play well off each other. Again, they are not Redford and Newman, but they both give a decent enough performance. So, if you are a fan of Alan Ladd, you will find this easily forgetful film decent entertainment. If not, you haven't lost much.

Even as a 9-year old in 1956, looking up at the screen in a suburban Sydney theatre on a Saturday afternoon, I knew "Santiago" was lacklustre.

Set during the 1898 Cuban revolution against Spain, enemies and gunrunners Cash Adams (Alan Ladd) and Clay Pike (Lloyd Nolan) join forces to ship guns to the rebels. However "Santiago" had the same predictable formula of many an Alan Ladd film at the time. Although they opened with an action sequence, they soon settled into an interminable gabfest while Ladd's character (usually embittered by something) sorted out the romantic situation with the girl in the movie - Rosanna Podestà in this case.

Rosanna had just launched a thousand ships as Helen in "Helen of Troy" (still a favourite). Apparently she couldn't speak English and learned her lines by rote for that movie. In "Santiago" she may have been dubbed; her voice has a rather detached quality.

The novel element in "Santiago" is that the guns are being taken to Cuba on a Mississippi paddle steamer captained by 'Sidewheel' Jones (Chill Wills). In those days, Alan Ladd and Chill Wills were actors I knew better than Laurence Olivier or Marlon Brando.

It didn't take a particularly demanding critic to see that the interiors and much else in "Santiago" were filmed in a flat, artless manner, more or less matching the story.

The movie came to life a little at the end with a shootout between Cash and Clay Pike (who homages Burt Lancaster's death scene in the much better "Vera Cruz").

Incidentally, the Spanish soldiers in "Santiago" are cast in pretty much the same role as the stormtroopers in "Star Wars"; cannon fodder for Cash, Clay and Co. They get taken down so easily by flying knives and bullets that they hardly project any sense of menace at all.

At those Saturday afternoon matinees, I caught Alan Ladd at the tail end of his career. Now I can appreciate his work more objectively. Good as he was in "This Gun for Hire" and "Shane" he was just about perfect in "The Great Gatsby". It seems he was a nice guy and loyal. Decades later, his movies always remind me of those much-anticipated afternoons at the 'pictures' even if expectations weren't always met.

The problem is that the heroes are supposedly fighting for the Cuban cause (against the Spanish invaders) but Cuba fell into American hands the same year;it would have been acceptable if Cash had remained an arms dealer ,just working for .....cash;but he tries to redeem himself,he's got a high moral conscience :he was a military man and he could never get over his shame,his demotion.His sense of honor is still intact and when he meets the beautiful Isabella,the rebels' Passionaria ,he is ripe for rehabilitation.

If you forget history-and the "cultural"lines at the beginning-you have a watchable adventures movie which begins as a western ,continues as some kind of pirate tale and ends with a long walk through the jungle.

As for Ladd,he did much worse than that :" guns of the Timberland" and mainly "Orazio e Curiazo " in which he plays like a zombie.

I thought Alan Ladd would have produced this movie thru his Jaguar Production company, but no. Very strange. Anyway, I don't think it would have changed anything.... It is a western set in Cuba, no more no less the predictable and common Warner and Gordon Douglas association result. Nothing special to notice. Everything is efficient, a good time waster, as any Gordon Douglas's film. Alan Ladd is as wooden as usual too, but that belonged to his "charm". Rossana Podesta proceeds here her Hollywood adventure shortly after HELEN OF TROY, made by Robert Wise, the very same year. So, don't despise this adventure movie, even if it is not a masterpiece.

Alan Ladd, Lloyd Nolan, and Chill Wills star in this adventure where a bunch of mercenary americans try to make money by selling guns to the Cubans trying to gain their independence. Rossana Podestà is the token female, standing up for her homeland, caught up in all this. Nolan is "Pike", strutting and bragging the whole time. Most of the film is about just trying to get the guns to the island... it's a bit hokey, over-acting and hamming it up for the camera. and having the girl's little brother Juanito tag along is just silly, clearly a gimmick to tug on the heart strings. This one was nearing the end of the line for Alan Ladd; he had started as talkies were getting going.

Directed by Gordon Douglas. According to wikipedia , he had started with Hal Roach in the early days, and moved up quickly. Check out Douglas' resume.. he sure directed some big films. This one is okay.. not great, but certainly entertaining. and includes talk of the U.S. ship Maine, which was sunk at Cuba in 1898. later floated and re-sunk off Florida 1912. interesting stuff.