1954 Western film directed by Robert Aldrich
Vera Cruz is a 1954 American Western film directed by Robert Aldrich and starring Gary Cooper and Burt Lancaster, featuring Denise Darcel, Sara Montiel, Cesar Romero, Ernest Borgnine, Charles Bronson and Jack Elam. Set during the Franco-Mexican War, the film centers on a group of American mercenaries tasked with transporting a large shipment of Imperial gold to the port of Veracruz, but begin to have second thoughts about their allegiances. It was produced by Hecht-Lancaster Productions and released by United Artists on 25 December 1954.
The picture's amoral characters and cynical attitude towards violence (including a scene where Lancaster's character threatens to murder child hostages) were considered shocking at the time and influenced future Westerns such as The Magnificent Seven (1960), The Professionals (1966), Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch (1969), and the spaghetti Westerns of Sergio Leone, which often featured supporting cast members from Vera Cruz in similar roles. Its influence on Leone's work led some critics to label it "the proto-Spaghetti Western."
Plot summary adapted from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.