Garden of Evil | |
---|---|
Directed by | Henry Hathaway |
Screenplay by | Frank Fenton |
Story by | Fred Freiberger William Tunberg |
Produced by | Charles Brackett |
Starring | Gary Cooper Susan Hayward Richard Widmark |
Cinematography | Milton R. Krasner Jorge Stahl, Jr. |
Edited by | James B. Clark |
Music by | Bernard Herrmann |
Color process | Technicolor |
Production company | 20th Century Fox |
Distributed by | 20th Century Fox |
Release date |
|
Running time | 100 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Budget | $2,070,000 [1] or $2.5 million [2] |
Box office | $3.1 million (US rentals) [3] or $3.4 million [2] |
Garden of Evil is a 1954 American CinemaScope Western film directed by Henry Hathaway, about three somewhat disreputable 19th-century soldiers of fortune, played by Gary Cooper as an ex-lawman, Richard Widmark as a gambler, and Cameron Mitchell as a bounty hunter, who, along with Vicente, played by Víctor Manuel Mendoza, are randomly hired by a woman portrayed by Susan Hayward, to rescue her husband (Hugh Marlowe). Rita Moreno appears at the beginning of the film as a Mexican cantina singer/dancer. It was the first outdoor picture photographed in the new CinemaScope anamorphic widescreen process and director Hathaway took special pains to use the stunning vistas of the Mexican locations to show off the new screen dimensions to best effect.
Three American adventurers are on a boat to the California gold fields, but when their steamship for California experiences engine trouble, the American adventurers find themselves stranded in a Mexican fishing village. While they discuss their options in a local saloon, Leah Fuller, whose husband John is trapped in a distant gold mine, enters. She needs help to rescue him. Noticing the Americans, she offers them $2,000 each, tossing a bag of coins on their table. Her gesture attracts the attention of another saloon customer, Vicente, who accepts her deal. The Americans -- an ex-sheriff, a gambler, and an upstart-kid bounty hunter -- sign on as well.
During the harrowing journey inland, Leah informs ex-lawman Hooker that the site where her husband is trapped was once a boom town. It was wiped out by a volcanic eruption, leaving only a church steeple and a gold mine. The resident priest called it the "garden of evil." The Indians now consider the volcano sacred. One of the group keeps marking the trail and leaving stone arrows with direction, but Leah wipes out the markings as she finds them and only she knows the way. When the group arrives at the mine, they discover John unconscious but alive. They work to free him before the ceiling collapses further. They transport him to a nearby cabin where Hooker sets his broken leg. He sees the men with Leah and asks her how she managed to get them to come and suspects she came back for the gold rather than him, but she denies it.
With hostile Apaches nearby, the group quickly prepare to leave. During their return, Johns sees he is slowing the group down and gets the young bounty hunter to help him on a horse to get away from the group and leaves down the trail, but the Indians get the bounty hunter who is killed by an arrow in the back. At a burnt-out mission, Leah's husband is found dead, hung upside down on a cross. Vicente falls next at a ambush, the victim of multiple arrows. Later, the three survivors reach a choke point in the cliff-hugging path, the only way out. Hooker and the gambler, Fiske, draw cards to see which of them will stay behind to hold off the Indians while the other rides with Leah to safety. Fiske "wins" and Leah hugs him as she leaves and tells him goodby and leaves with Hooker. Fiske succeeds in killing or driving off most of their pursuers. However, he is badly wounded. After seeing Leah to safety, Hooker returns to aid Fiske. The gambler admits he cheated on the card draw to guarantee he would stay behind. Before he dies, Fiske urges Hooker to settle down with Leah. Hooker returns to Leah, and they ride off into the sunset.
The working title for the film was Volcano, it was changed because "there is an Italian pic of same title now playing U.S. art houses", a 1950 film directed by William Dieterle and starring Rossano Brazzi and Anna Magnani.
Robert L. Jacks was originally set to produce, but he left 20th Century-Fox to join Panoramic Productions and was replaced by Charles Brackett.
Outdoor sequences were shot on location in Mexico, at "the colonial town" of Tepotzotlán, in the jungle areas near Acapulco, Parícutin volcano with the church ruin of Nuevo San Juan Parangaricutiro, and the village of Guanajuato with the then-unrestored church ruins of Templo Santiago Apóstol, Marfil. Interior scenes were also shot at the Churubusco Studios in Mexico City. [4]
The New York Times reviewer wrote, "Although the story and its fireworks are interesting, they are dwarfed by the rugged mountains and lush coconut and banana-tree jungles of the film's natural settings." [5]
In his 1988 book, The American West in Film: Critical Approaches to the Western, author Jon Tuska observed the American characters in Garden of Evil are "stalked on the way to the mine by Apaches wearing Mohawk hairpieces." [6] Tuska was referencing one of the filmmakers' gaffes—dressing Apache tribe members as Mohawks. According to author Josephine Paterek, Apaches generally "wore the hair long and flowing or in two braids." This was sometimes augmented with a war cap consisting of "fur and curved antelope horns." [7] Mohawk and Iroquois tribes, those located in the northeastern U. S., almost exclusively, "shaved off all the hair except for the scalplock at the back", adorned with "a roach spreader of bone holding erect a feather that rotated freely..." [8] Mohawk hairstyles, however, were virtually nonexistent among Native-Americans in the Southwest.
Under the Volcano is a novel by English writer Malcolm Lowry (1909–1957) published in 1947. The novel tells the story of Geoffrey Firmin, an alcoholic British consul in the Mexican city of Quauhnahuac, on the Day of the Dead in November 1938. The book takes its name from the two volcanoes, Popocatépetl and Iztaccihuatl, that overshadow Quauhnahuac and the characters. Under the Volcano was Lowry's second and last complete novel.
Duane Chapman, also known as Dog the Bounty Hunter, is an American television personality, bounty hunter, and former bail bondsman.
Cochise was the Mexican leader of the Chiricahui local group of the Chokonen and principal nantan of the Chokonen band of a Chiricahua Apache. A key war leader during the Apache Wars, he led an uprising that began in 1861 and persisted until a peace treaty was negotiated in 1872. Cochise County is named after him.
John Joel Glanton was an early settler of Arkansas Territory. He was also a Texas Ranger and a soldier in the Mexican–American War and the leader of a notorious gang of scalp-hunters in Northern Mexico and the Southwestern United States during the mid-19th century. Contemporary sources also describe him as a murderous outlaw and prominent participant in the Texas Revolution. He appears as a violent figure in the works of the prominent Western writers Larry McMurtry and Cormac McCarthy.
Broken Arrow is a 1950 American revisionist Western film directed by Delmer Daves and starring James Stewart, Jeff Chandler, and Debra Paget. The film is based on historical figures, but fictionalizes their story in dramatized form. It was nominated for three Academy Awards, and won a Golden Globe Award for Best Film Promoting International Understanding. Film historians have said that the film was one of the first major Westerns since the Second World War to portray Native Americans sympathetically.
The Missing is a 2003 American Western film directed by Ron Howard and starring Tommy Lee Jones and Cate Blanchett. It is based on Thomas Eidson's 1996 novel The Last Ride. Set in 1885 New Mexico Territory, the film is notable for the authentic use of the Apache language by various actors, some of whom spent long hours studying it. It was produced by Revolution Studios, Imagine Entertainment, and Daniel Ostroff Productions and distributed by Columbia Pictures. The film received mixed reviews from critics.
Kate Josephine Bateman Crowe was an American actress. She started out as a child actor with her sister Ellen Bateman, but it was Kate who later developed a career in romantic leading parts.
Star Wars: The Han Solo Trilogy is a trilogy of non-canon ('Legends') science-fiction novels set in the Star Wars galaxy. It follows Han Solo's origins and life before the events depicted in the original Star Wars trilogy (1977–1983). The trilogy was written by Ann C. Crispin, and released in June 1997, October 1997, and March 1998, respectively. The author stated that "Per Lucasfilm's request, I did not cover Han's time in the Imperial Academy, or his first meeting with Chewbacca"; these events were eventually depicted in the 2018 film Solo: A Star Wars Story.
The Last Wagon is a 1956 American CinemaScope western film starring Richard Widmark. It was co-written and directed by Delmer Daves and tells a story set during the American Indian Wars: the survivors of an Indian massacre must rely on a man wanted for several murders to lead them out of danger.
Yellow Sky is a 1948 American Western film directed by William A. Wellman and starring Gregory Peck, Richard Widmark, and Anne Baxter. The story is believed to be loosely adapted from William Shakespeare's The Tempest. The screenplay concerns a band of reprobate outlaws who flee after a bank robbery and encounter an old man and his granddaughter in a ghost town.
Boss Nigger is a 1975 blaxploitation Western film directed by Jack Arnold, starring former football player Fred Williamson, who also wrote and co-produced the film. It is the first film for which Williamson was credited as screenwriter or producer.
Al Sieber was a German-American immigrant who fought in the American Civil War (1861-1865), and in the American Old West frontier against the Native Americans. (Indians) in the later American Indian Wars of the mid to late 19th century. He became a prospector and later served as a decorated Chief of Scouts for the United States Army during the subsequent Apache Wars of 1849 - 1886 in the southwestern United States.
Mr. Horn is a 1979 American Western miniseries based on Tom Horn's writings, starring David Carradine. It was directed by Jack Starrett from a screenplay by William Goldman. This version came out just prior to the 1980 feature film Tom Horn, which starred Steve McQueen.
The Mothering Heart is a 1913 American short drama film directed by D. W. Griffith. A print of the film survives in the film archive of the Museum of Modern Art.
Take a Hard Ride is a 1975 Italian-American Spaghetti Western film directed by Anthony Dawson and starring Jim Brown, Lee Van Cleef, Fred Williamson and Jim Kelly. This was the second of three films Brown, Williamson, and Kelly would star in, following Three the Hard Way and preceding One Down, Two to Go.
The Bounty Hunter is a 2010 American romantic action comedy directed by Andy Tennant, starring Jennifer Aniston and Gerard Butler. The story centers on a bounty hunter hired to retrieve his ex-wife, who has skipped bail. The film was released in the United States on March 19, 2010. The film received negative reviews from critics but was a box office success, grossing $136.3 million against a production budget of $40–45 million.
Young Buffalo Bill is a 1940 American Western film directed by Joseph Kane and starring Roy Rogers and George "Gabby" Hayes.
Guns, Girls and Gambling is a 2012 American action crime thriller film written and directed by Michael Winnick. The film stars an ensemble cast, which includes Gary Oldman, Christian Slater, Megan Park, Helena Mattsson, Tony Cox, Chris Kattan, Powers Boothe, Michael and Eddie Spears, and Jeff Fahey.
The Last Rites of Ransom Pride is a 2010 Canadian Western film set in 1912 America starring Lizzy Caplan.
The Apache–Mexico Wars, or the Mexican Apache Wars, refer to the conflicts between Spanish or Mexican forces and the Apache peoples. The wars began in the 1600s with the arrival of Spanish colonists in present-day New Mexico. War between the Mexicans and the Apache was especially intense from 1831 into the 1850s. Thereafter, Mexican operations against the Apache coincided with the Apache Wars of the United States, such as during the Victorio Campaign. Mexico continued to operate against hostile Apache bands as late as 1915.