The Baron of Arizona-Sam Fuller-1950

Sam Fuller loved audacious stories and the true-life tale of James Addison Reavis must have tickled him to no end. Reavis was a grand-scale huckster who trumped anything Orson Welles put into his study of big-time fraud, F for Fake. The Baron of Arizona is a beautifully produced miniature epic with an impressive and ultimately sympathetic performance from Vincent Price. "Everyone loves a fraud" is not a common sentiment, but Fuller finds enough good in Reavis to merit our mercy. He's a standard-issue Fuller hero ... a complicated man who doesn't expect favors.





Synopsis:





Land clerk James Addison Reavis (Vincent Price) spends years setting up the biggest swindle of the 19th century, forging documents and records to establish that the poor Sofia de Peralta (Ellen Drew) is the rightful heir to an old Spanish land grant -- which encompasses most of the territory of Arizona. Government agent John Griff (Reed Hadley) tries to prove fraud but no evidence can be found. Reavis marries Sofia and proclaims himself the Baron of Arizona, but neither Sofia nor her adoptive father Pepito Alvarez (Vladimir Sokoloff) realize exactly what Addison is doing.



The story of The Baron of Arizona plays like a tall tale, as Sam Fuller embellishes the true story to make James Reavis seem like a genius. Reavis manufactures an entire false history for the fictitious Peralta family, inventing ancestors and planting forged documents all the way back to original Land Grant records in Spain. To gain access to one copy of the land deeds, he spends several years in a Spanish monastery. To alter another land deed registry, he joins a group of gypsies and seduces a Marquesa (Margia Dean again, the producer's girlfriend). Fuller stresses that the United States honored Spanish land grants under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, and that Reavis' chicanery was uncovered only through the work of a tireless federal investigator.



If the information on Wikipedia is accurate, the real James Reavis was less talented but even more conspiratorial. He sought partnerships with a group that included George Hearst (William Randolph's father) to push his claims through. With the backing of fat cats eager to lay claim to a whole territory, Reavis tried the same gambit several times. He eventually married a fake Peralta heir and called himself the Baron of Arizoniac, but a Surveyor General named Royal Johnson disproved his cheap forgeries, along with many claims by copycat fakers. Reavis eventually spent three years in prison.



Fuller shows the obsessed Price carefully creating false stone markers and becoming the guardian of a young girl named Peralta, convincing her that she's the real Baroness. When all the evidence has been salted, he returns and files his claims (as an individual of course, in Fuller's version the corporate moguls are innocent of wrongdoing) and starts collecting money from people who thought they already owned their property. The real Reavis is said to have sent out thugs to extort the financial settlements.



What makes The Baron of Arizona interesting is that Fuller suddenly decides that the Reavis' grandiose dream makes him a hero instead of a nuisance; we side with Reavis and and Sofia against the mobs of dispossessed farmers and ranchers. Fuller touts the fairness of the U.S. government but knows that only those who dare change the map of the world, and he loves bold adventurers. The measure of Fuller's success is that Reavis' wife and servants stand by him even when he eventually confesses. Reavis has built Sofia's entire life on a fraud, but she still loves him. It's a truly unique story idea.



Fuller has two main factors that make his story work. Vincent Price gives a controlled performance, never losing sight of his goal and expressing glee when his crooked plans go well. His final redemption is very well played. Cameraman James Wong Howe gets the maximum from the low-end Robert Lippert production values, and manages some dramatic visuals. The Baron of Arizona has a great many short scenes, and looks much more expensive than Fuller's self-financed effort, Park Row.



Ellen Drew is always good, and Vladimir Sokoloff is charming as the Mexican peasant Pepito. Beulah Bondi is in a couple of scenes as Sofia's governess. As the government agent Reed Hadley returns, this time with a lot more dialogue. Hadley is a familiar voiceover actor known for many 'voice of authority' narrations, especially in crime films, and it's almost unsettling to hear that voice saying normal screen dialogue. Stock thug Gene Roth plays a gentle Spanish priest, and Angelo Rossito of Freaks enlivens the gypsy segment. Tina Rome, the gypsy girl, was also an accomplished writer under the name Tina Pine. Nineteen years later, Pine co-wrote the Alan Arkin film Popi.



Starring Vincent Price, Ellen Drew, Vladimir Sokoloff, Beulah Bondi, Reed Hadley, Tina Rome, Karen Kester, Margia Dean, Gene Roth, Angelo Rossitto

Cinematography James Wong Howe

Production Design Jack Poplin

Art Direction F. Paul Sylos

Film Editor Arthur Hilton

Original Music Paul Dunlap

Written by Samuel Fuller from a story by Homer Croy

Produced by Carl K. Hittleman, Robert L. Lippert



I'm not sure that this is a western as we think of it,comments?

By the way I also have the William Holden western"Arizona"1940 which I'll do next weekend.