Santiago

This is an above-average outing for Alan Ladd, who had a very uneven career, but the real value is in the superb cast of supporting character actors, including Lloyd Nolan, Paul Fix, Chill Wills and Royal Dano, among others.

"Santiago" is set in Cuba just before the Spanish-American War. Ladd and Nolan are competing gunrunners trying to sell weapons to the Cuban revolutionaries. Neither are saints, but whereas Nolan is the obviously villainous type, Ladd is the Good Man with a Stain in his background, just waiting to be rescued from the wrong path. His guide is the beautiful rebel Rossana Podesta, who is fiery, noble and breathes deeply on cue. Wills, Fix and the rest of the very competent supporting cast play their roles well. There is one surprise in the ending but otherwise it's predictable.

It's a competent studio production for the period, with enough detail to make it credible. It's not a great movie, but it is good entertainment, with a beautiful girl, a Cause and a Moral...what more could you ask for in 1956!

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.

Adventure movie which has some good moments but it's absurd most times. Alan Ladd and Lloyd Nolan are two rival dealers, trying to sell guns for rebels who fight against the Spanish domain in Cuba. Of course, between them there is a girl, a rebel leader played by Italian actress Rossana Podesta. That's she who has the movie's most brilliant line. Ladd sees a group of rebels dancing the conga (or some kind of dance identified as conga) and ask Rossana how could they be happy in such situation. She says something like "because the hatred is in their souls but not in their hearts" !!! And she also has an annoying kid brother. Sorry but I can't recommend this movie.

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.

Alan Ladd plays Cash Adams, an ex-West Point officer who was dishonorably discharged from the military. Now he's a gun runner selling weapons to the highest bidder. He arrives in Tampa to sell guns to Cubans, who are fighting Spanish oppressors. Right away he's thrown a curve when he is told he must deliver the weapons to Cuba before he is paid. It is a switch of plans but he agrees but for double the original price. He delivers the cargo to large paddle boat operated by Captain Jones (Chill Wills). There, he is surprise to see Clay Pike (Lloyd Nolan), an old nemesis who is also selling weapons to Cuba.

Adams tells anyone who will listen that he is only interested in money. The viewer suspects that Adams doesn't quite believe that himself. On the boat, we meet Dona Isabella (Rossana Podesta), a Cuban patriot, who has been collecting funds in America. It becomes apparent that the rivalry Pike and Adams runs very deep and the two men seem to hate each other.

The boat arrives in Cuba, but there is another change of plan. The Spanish now control the roads. So the weapons will have to be transported through the heavy bush and jungle.There are a couple of close shaves but the group eventually manage to deliver the weapons to the specified destination. Adams learns that the Cubans were attacked by the Spanish and have gone into hiding. Pike has had too many changes to the plan and too many scrapes with death. He decides right then and there that they will forget the delivery and sell the weapons to the Spanish. Adams disagrees with his proposal.

Now the long running battle between the two men will come to a close. The fight to the death that both men had envisioned is about to take place. If Pike wins, the weapons will be sold to the Spanish. If Adams wins, they continue on in their journey to deliver the weapons. It's a solid little adventure film. The two leads, Nolan and Ladd, run the show and deliver as one would expect. Some reviewers really seem to dislike the film. It's no masterpiece, but a typical 50's adventure film, aimed at the youngsters.