The Baron of Arizona ***½ (1950, Vincent Price, Ellen Drew, Vladimir Sokoloff) – Classic Movie Review 3488

‘FASCINATING TRUE STORY… of the most daring rogue the world has ever known!’

Cult writer-director Samuel Fuller’s 1950 The Baron of Arizona is the intriguing, offbeat Western tale of 19th-century clerk James Addison Reavis who, along with his wife Sofia, plotted to claim most of the state of Arizona with fake land deeds, painstakingly forged over years. Stealing Arizona might have been a good title for the movie.

When the US Government recognises land grants made when the West was under Spanish rule, Reavis has the idea to forge a chain of historical evidence that makes the foundling Sofia the Baroness of Arizona. So Reavis marries her and claims almost the entire Arizona territory for both of them.

Vincent Price exuberantly – though convincingly and engagingly – plays the real-life grand-scale master swindler ‘The Baron’, and it is a great yarn spiritedly directed by Fuller. The cheap production (only $135,000), quick filming – it was shot in just 15 days – and a slightly undernourished screenplay let it down very slightly, but otherwise this is a very good movie from Fuller, with James Wong Howe’s black and white photography an obvious asset.

Also in the cast are Ellen Drew as Sofia de Peralta-Reavis ‘The Baroness’, Beulah Bondi as Loma, Vladimir Sokoloff as Pepito, Reed Hadley as Griff, Robert Barrat as Judge, Robin Short as Lansing, Barbara Woodell, Tina Pine [Tina Rome] as Rita, Margia Dean, Edward Keane, I Stanford Jolley, Jonathan Hale, Karen Kester, Fred Kohler Jr and Gene Roth.

The Baron of Arizona was filmed at Corriganville, the Ray Corrigan Ranch, Simi Valley, California. A print is preserved by the US Museum of Modern Art.

Reavis (1843-1914) paid a fine of $5,000 and served two years in jail after he was found guilty of attempting to steal most of Arizona by forging land grant documents.

In 1939, it was announced that Edward G Robinson would play Reavis in Warner Bros’ Prince of Imposters, with Brenda Marshall co-starring and Anatole Litvak directing, but it never happened.

The Baron of Arizona runs 97 minutes, is made by Deputy Corporation, is released by Lippert Pictures (1950) (US) and Exclusive Films (1950) (UK), is produced by Carl K Hittleman and scored by Paul Dunlap.

© Derek Winnert 2016 Classic Movie Review 3488

Link to home page for more reviews derekwinnert.com