NR | 1h 16m | Drama, Western | 1956
As I was reviewing the Western “Massacre” (1956), my father happened to send me old photographs from when he lived in Mexico’s rugged countryside.
He spent years exploring many of the country’s regions and told me stories about it when I was growing up. Once, when I stayed there with him, he warned me never to stray too far into the mountains past Puerto Vallarta, as bandits still operated there.
This film is set in that very same landscape and shot on location south of the border. The narrative is about an oft-forgotten chapter of 19th-century history, when highwaymen controlled trade routes and the government couldn’t protect its own roads. It became enough of a problem that the Mexican government established the mounted rural police known as the Rurales in 1861. Interestingly, some of the film’s extras had first-hand experience.
In the following years, the Rurales grew in number and pursued the bandits. Their history wasn’t entirely heroic, though. They developed a reputation as a political instrument of control and repression.
Dane Clark and James Craig play Rurales officers headed into Yaqui country to find out who’s been selling rifles to the Native Americans. The gunrunning angle was familiar territory for Westerns of that period. “The Paleface” (1948) had Calamity Jane investigating white traders who were illegally selling guns to a tribe, and “Thunder Pass” (1954), also starring Clark, featured John Carradine as a gunrunner wheeling and dealing with Native Americans.
Gunrunners in Yaqui Country
Capitán Ramón (Clark) rides into Yaqui territory looking for Miguel Chávez (Miguel Torruco), a trader suspected of supplying rifles to the tribe. The Yaqui have their own reason for wanting Chávez. The medicine he sold to them has caused blindness among their people, leaving the missing trader with enemies on both sides.
Ramón eventually reaches Chávez’s trading post and encounters his wife, Angélica (Martha Roth), who claims her husband is simply away buying supplies. However, evidence found around the post soon makes that explanation hard to believe.
Ramón takes Angélica with the patrol as his men continue after Chávez, and Juan Pedro (Jaime Fernández), a Yaqui scout, acts as their guide. Teniente Ezparza (Craig), Ramón’s second-in-command, quickly becomes very interested in Angélica, and she sees his lust as an opportunity and begins working her womanly wiles.
With Chávez still somewhere ahead and doubts growing inside his patrol, Ramón soon realizes that he has more on his hands than a bunch of illegal rifles.
From Rurales to Rambo
Mexico had already become familiar territory for American productions by the 1950s. Many great Westerns, such as “Garden of Evil” (1954) with Gary Cooper and Richard Widmark, were shot there, and “Massacre” followed that same path years later. The country offered experienced crews, studio facilities, and miles of scenery that filmmakers benefited from, while saving money.
That filmmaking connection never really disappeared. American productions still use Mexican crews and locations from time to time, helped by the country’s proximity to the United States and the sheer variety of biomes available there. As a young man, my father worked as a background actor in “Rambo: First Blood Part II” (1985).
Martha Roth is convincing as Angélica Chávez, one of the more thoroughly unpleasant characters in the movie. She’s greedy, manipulative, and perfectly willing to use Ezparza’s interest in her whenever it helps. The rest of the cast delivers good performances overall, and I’m always impressed by James Craig.
“Massacre” has the rough spots expected from a Western made on a limited budget, and its version of Mexican history has been simplified for an adventure picture.
Still, it inspired me to find out more about the Rurales and the banditry they were created to fight. That kind of curiosity is one of the pleasures of older movies such as this. Sometimes, a little B Western can leave viewers with a name or piece of history that sends them digging long after the horses have already ridden off-screen.
“Massacre” is available on GanJingWorld.
‘Massacre’
Director: Louis King
Starring: Dane Clark, James Craig, Martha Roth
Not Rated
Running time: 1 hour, 16 minutes
Release Date: June 1, 1956
Rated: 3 1/2 stars out of 5
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