The Wonderful Country (film)

This article is about the film. For the novel, see The Wonderful Country.

The Wonderful Country
File:The Wonderful Country FilmPoster.jpeg
Directed by	Robert Parrish
Produced by	Chester Erskine
Written by	Robert Ardrey (screenplay) Walter Bernstein (uncredited) Tom Lea (novel)
Starring	Robert Mitchum Julie London Pedro Armendáriz
Music by	Alex North
Cinematography	Floyd Crosby Alex Phillips
Edited by	Michael Luciano
Distributed by	United Artists
Release dates	1959
Running time	98 minutes
Country	United States of America (production) Mexico (filming)
Language	English
Box office	$1 million (US/Canada rentals)

The Wonderful Country is a 1959 Technicolor Western film based on Tom Lea's novel of the same name that was produced by Robert Mitchum's DRM Production company in Mexico. Mitchum stars along with Julie London.

Baseball pitcher Satchel Paige plays a soldier in the film, and Lea has a cameo as a barber.

Plot

Mercenary Martin Brady is employed by the Castro brothers, Marcos (Victor Manuel Mendoza), a general, and Cipriano (Pedro Armendáriz), a governor. On a business trip to the United States to arrange the sale of a wagonload of rifles and ammunition, he is delayed when he breaks his leg in an accident.

Treated by Dr Stovall (Charles McGraw), he stays in the Texas town of Puerto with two German Americans, Ben (John Banner) and Ludwig (Max Slaten), to recover. Brady's expertise is sought by the commanders of the local U.S. Army, Major Colton (Gary Merrill) and Texas Rangers Captain Rucker (Albert Dekker), who are planning a mission against hostile Apaches in Mexico.

Captain Rucker knows that Brady avenged the murder of his father but no charges are standing. However, his falling in love with Colton's unhappy wife Helen (Julie London), and also his shooting a stranger (Chuck Roberson) who murdered Ludwig and then drew on Brady, sends him back to Mexico. Brady finds himself between the ambitious Castro brothers and assisting the U.S. Army's Buffalo Soldiers led by a wounded Major Colton and his sergeant (Satchel Paige).

A wanted man in both lands, Brady must decide which way to go. After the major's death, Captain Rucker offers to help prove that the shooting in Puerto was a case of self-defense. Helen is uncertain as to whether they have a future together, but Brady decides to risk it and heads back from Mexico across the river to the U.S.

Production

Robert Parrish went to Tom Lea and asked if he [Parrish] could direct it. The only money that Lea received from the picture was for his role as the barber.

The motion picture was filmed in the state of Durango. Parrish and Lea first asked Henry Fonda, then Gregory Peck to take the starring role. But, Mitchum really wanted to do the film, and after Fonda and Peck said no, Mitchum took over production.

Reception

The film was not well received at the box office and by some critics, but other critics considered it beautifully filmed, by cinematographers Floyd Crosby and Alex Phillips.

A rave review in the New York Times appeared on Nov. 5, 1959, critic Howard Thompson referring to Mitchum as "ideally cast" and writing: "This is a superior, intelligent film on nearly every count ... beautifully paced by Robert Parrish's direction and magnificently evocative of the locale where it was made, this Chester Erskine production is consistently rewarding."

Upon its release, TIME said about it: "But the result is just a crying Shane. All that is truly dramatic is the wonderful country itself" and about Mitchum's performance: "...he sounds like an Aztec exchange student after six terms at C.C.N.Y.". "The rest of the plot is as snarled as a ball of tumbleweed." and; "...a western that is more woolly than wild".

Upon its 1961 release in Cuba, it set off an ideological fury due to "two Mexican bandits who were named the Castro brothers".

As Roger Fristoe notes, recent critics regard the film more highly than critics writing more than fifty years ago. Dennis Schwartz wrote in 2009 that the film is "A wonderfully rich western that ambitiously covers many familiar themes and does a good job in developing the main character and his knotty personality."

External links

• The Wonderful Country at IMDb
• The Wonderful Country at the TCM Movie Database
• The Wonderful Country at AllMovie

• "1959: Probable Domestic Take", Variety, 6 January 1960 p 34
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• A relatively recent review by a critic who awarded the film an "A-" rating.