MovieChat Forums > Garden of Evil (1954) Discussion > Weak, uninvolved film, yet beautifully p...

Weak, uninvolved film, yet beautifully photographed.

posted 15 years ago by donofthedial
13 replies | jump to latest

Beautiful location photography and a good score by Bernard Hermann...and that about warps it up for GARDEN OF EVIL.

Gary Cooper seems very bored with his part.

Richard Widmark seems there for a vacation and doesn't want to get too worked up, either.

Cameron Mitchell and the Mexican dude really get excited over their thinly written parts.

And Susan Hayward, once again, gets a part that suits her non-acting ability.

Do Cooper or Widmark get any close-ups in this film? Almost everything in the film is a medium or long shot. They get chased by Apache Indians, but there is no visual way to really prove it. The camera seems about a mile away.

This is one of those vapid tales that seems to write itself in a rolling and banal manner.

Hayward comes charging into town to get help for her trapped husband in a gold mine. The boys ride out with her and it takes half the film for them to get there - perhaps a 3 or 4 days ride. It takes about 90 seconds for them to rescue him (Hugh Marlowe). They stay around the gold mine for a while and then ride back to town with Apaches on their trail.

And that's the picture.

These characters have little emotional involvement to involve *you* in the film. Why is everyone in the film so pre-involved with the other characters? They don't know each other. They have little or no history together. Does the film want us to believe that Susan Hayward is that alluring that these men become near instantly attached to her? She has nothing to offer except gold and sex.

The film is little more than a beautifully colored cartoon with nicely staged horse-riding sequences and gorgeous panoramas in Cinemascope.

[–] RyanDuchamp 15 years ago

Couldn't disagree with you more Susan Hayward is a fine actress, one of my favorite classic stars. Other than being correct about it being beautifully filmed I think your completely wrong. Cooper and Widmark played their roles in an understated manner which is what was called for. While not a complex plot it doesn't need to be. You say Hayward had nothing to offer but gold and sex well that's the point, what some men will do for either as Cooper states "If the Earth was made of gold, I guess men would die for a handful of dirt."

[–] 15 years ago

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[–] plwblj 15 years ago

Yes,Hayward,is quite good and most needed in this opus to give it a center...

I personally like the bond between Cooper & Widmark and wished they could have done more films in collaboration.

The Mexican gentleman i thought had spark-and wasn't Rita Moreno incredibly smouldering !

*I still believe that this piece is the greatest exotica Western ever made w\all its warts and flaws intact ....

[–] rsgre 15 years ago

Nice comments everyone, I waited a long time for this to show up on TV(finally on AMC), and was disappointed when it did. A tepid story line with lots of nice scenery, but nothing very inspiring. Could not believe that Rita Moreno was wasted in a 5 minute bit part and never seen again (they should have taken her along too). I guess the reason for this is that it was just intended to show off Cinemascope and stereo sound, and they also ran into delays in production, and just finished it off the best they could. Bernard Herrmann's score is good if a bit over the top in places, but helps to fill in the holes in the plot.
Might have more...

RSGRE

[–] imdb-22063 14 years ago

Yes couldn't agree with you more.
Widmark rarely plays a bad film so I was surprised at this.
Cooper looks totally bored.

The writing and dialogue is dire.

[–] 398 13 years ago

"The writing and dialogue is dire."

My take on it also. The big line at the end--"If the world were made of gold, men would kill each other for a handful of dirt"--didn't seem a reasonable reaction to Widmark sacrificing himself for Cooper and Hayward. "No greater love hath any man than that he lay down his life for a friend" would have seemed more appropriate for Cooper to be thinking about.

And the "greed is bad" message seemed very confused. Was this Cooper's motivation? Widmark's? The Apaches, although given no sympathy at all, were motivated by protecting their ancestral homeland, not greed.

Also, the romance between Hayward and Cooper seemed out of place. I think the movie might have worked better if Hayward and her husband had made it out together and she had come to terms with her own faults. As it was, the husband was barely cold in his grave, having sacrificed himself for her, before she was hooking up with Cooper for a "happy" ending. This struck me as sour, even if she was supposedly redeemed.

I think this movie might look better today if it were Hayward and her husband who rode off at the end and Cooper, as well as Widmark, sacrificed himself by staying behind. Maybe not the sort of thing they did in 1954, but it might have had more dramatic impact.

[–] zuzupetal_99 12 years ago

Couldn't agree more - I thought it was a mediocre movie at best and there wasn't much to take from the movie except the very end which I enjoyed. I do not get the appeal of Susan Hayward at all, sorry. I also couldn't help but wonder how on earth her husband was staying alive when it seemed to take several days ride to reach him, meaning he was alone & bleeding for twice as long there by himself waiting for his wife's return. Why did everyone sacrifice for her, especially when they seemed to not like her at all, including the husband & resent her? Why did she need someone to ride back with her after they rescue her husband - they seemed to think that was incredibly important that she not stay behind, even though she'd ridden alone thru Apache country to find these men to help her husband - that didn't make sense to me either.

I also didn't see why Widmark & Coop were fighting about who gets the newly-widowed Hayward, whom I thought had no chemistry whatsoever.

"Are you going to your grave with unlived lives in your veins?" ~ The Good Girl

[–] richildis (7) 5 years ago

Why would they sacrifice themselves for the husband? I mean what makes the husband worthy of living at the end while strangers have sacrificed themselves, he didn't even appreciate his wife riding all the way out(alone) and all the way back with strangers she had to bribe just to save him. He spent the whole time insulting her, badmouthing her to guys he'd just met, blaming her entirely for their misadventure, even though I doubt she held a gun to his head to make him go digging for gold. He refused to accept responsibility for his own actions. Frankly the husband seemed like a total jerk, though in the end I guess even he wasn't, because Cooper's character thought he sacrificed himself because he knew his injuries would hold them all back. His only good deed was that sacrifice, otherwise he seemed to have no redeeming qualities. Whereas Cooper, Hayward and Widmark all did. They all showed growth or at least shreds of common decency.

So Widmark's sacrifice was for Cooper and Hayward - not the husband(who was already dead and would not have deserved said sacrifice had he been alive, assuming he remained the same jerk he'd been since met when he was rescued).

But I don't think the line was an unreasonable reaction at all - gold, believing gold would somehow solve their problems, was exactly what landed them in this mess, all of them and ultimately it was what was underlying Widmark's death. The line wasn't meant to be the "lesson" that Widmark had learned or something uplifting like that, it was meant to be about what caused the trouble in the first in the first place. The line about someone staying to get the job done, that was meant to be about Widmark - but it was a job that wouldn't have to be done if not for greed(no the indians weren't greedy but they wouldn't be fighting if other greedy men weren't after their land)

[–] donofthedial 13 years ago

I watched it again a couple of months ago. Very lovely film in which to look at the great outdoors.

[–] 398 13 years ago

While I agree generally agree with the OP on his original post, this line about Susan Hayward's character did jump out at me:

"She has nothing to offer except gold and sex."

????????????

Those might rev up a few male motors.

[–] MOSSBIE 13 years ago

I question your sexuality as well as your history of women like Susan Hayward being around in the times the story takes place, and as a matter of fact, I think she would be a remarkable beauty today.........say, next to Jennifer Anniston....a waitress to me.
Also, these men are in the middle of an atmostphere where they are horny for more than cornholing one another in the desert even though Cameron Mitchell does take a shot at it.
The most impressive observation you make on the film, then dismiss it as if it were unimportant, was the score by Bernard Hermann.....HIS ONLY WESTERN!
I suggest that you watch a lot more travelogues rather than examine the potential interactions of horny men and a gorgeous Susan Hayward.

[–] 12 years ago

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[–] Jones70 (6195) 5 years ago

I thought it was descent.