Whoops; My Review Of The Baron Of Arizona

The Baron of Arizona (1950)

Runtime: 97 minutes

Directed by: Samuel Fuller

Starring: Vincent Price, Ellen Drew, Vladimir Sokoloff, Beulah Bondi, Reed Hadley

From: Deputy Corporation

I got wrapped up in other things so that's why I am posting this after midnight. I'll also post a review on Monday proper, and I'll make sure that happens. The Letterboxd review for this motion picture is below: 

I decided to watch this (Saturday) night as this is not only from Samuel Fuller-his second ever film-but it stars Vincent Price, which is good enough reason right there to see a motion picture.

The plot is quite loosely based on a real life event. It relates to the Gadsden Purchase; in 1853 the United States paid for what became the lower sections of Arizona and New Mexico from Mexico as not only was it disputed, but a company wanted to build a railroad through that land. The deal was that if anyone had a land grant from Mexico or Spain, it had to be honored. A fraudster named James Reavis (Price) concocted a scam in the 1870's and 1880's where he would forge documents to have a lot of territory in the Gadsden Purchase area, and he almost succeeded.

As shown in the movie, it was an elaborate scam that involved a lot of falsified records and even a girl who he claimed was the last living descendant of a fictitious Baron of Arizona. He first meets up with her when she's definitely under 18 years old and they have a dad/adopted daughter kind of relationship; to try and help his case, years later he pulls a Woody Allen and marries her. Yeah, that is quite disgusting, and I don't know what to think of the movie making their relationship a standard romance sort of thing.

It is a wacky tale not just for the disturbing male/female relationships; among other things, Price becomes a monk for a few years. It's an odd little thing that I can at least say is fine. The quality directing from Fuller helped, as did the cinematography from James Wong Howe (who worked for decades and did everything from The Thin Man and Hud to Funny Lady and Yankee Doodle Dandy)... but it was the performance of Price as the titular Baron that made this hokum watchable. Fuller definitely went on to better things after this but as only the second thing he ever did and filmed in only 15 days, not bad at all.