Santiago

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.

It's not easy to explain what went wrong with SANTIAGO. It has a basic good story, a top-level cast, and an experienced director; yet it lies virtually flat as a pancake as it unravels on screen. It suffers a serious failure to involve the audience in either the adventure or the romance.

This picture was made by Alan Ladd's production company. To Ladd's credit it's next to impossible to see this picture. Never issued in VHS or DVD, never re-issued, difficult to ever find a listing on eBay.

Leave this one alone and seek out Iron Mistress, Boy on a Dolphin, or two dozen other very good films starring Alan Ladd.

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.

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!

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.