Actuakers One of my all time favorites.

Pacionsbo Absolutely Fantastic

Intcatinfo A Masterpiece!

Portia Hilton Blistering performances.

Michael_Elliott Baron of Arizona, The (1950) ** 1/2 (out of 4)Fact-based drama of James Reavis (Vincent Price), the man who tried to gain control of Arizona and taking the U.S. government to court in order to prove it was his. In reality, Reavis set out on a life-long scheme full of lies and forgery to try and pull it off. As with Fuller's first movie, this second feature has a lot going for it but at the same time there are some major problems that keep it from being a lot better than it actually is. The biggest problem for me was the screenplay, which I felt spent way too much time with the build up and not enough of a pay off. The first fifty-two minutes are so drawn out that I began to lose interest in the film, story and characters. The opening of showing how Reavis set everything into motion is so drawn out that I was becoming quite bored and losing interest in the entire film. To me this entire segment could have been done in a twenty-minute sequence and it would have paid off more in the end. The film really starts to pick up once we're back in Arizona and Reavis tries to fulfill his evil plan. The reaction to the poor land owners, the government and the effect this plan has on Reavis makes for some good drama, which is lacking in the first half of the film. Price gives a wonderful performance and is the main reason to watch the movie. He's so calm and collective in how evil he is at one point you really can't help but wish he'd get away with the crime. The supporting players are fine even though no one really stands out. Fuller's direction is nice throughout and the cinematography is good as well. In the end this is a rather nice look at history but one can't help but wish it was better.

bkoganbing Because of the fact that the USA after the Mexican War and the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and the Gadsden Purchase which netted for the USA the southern half of Arizona, the original Spanish land grants and whoever had title to them, land office clerk James Addison Reavis hatched one bold and audacious scheme that had it been successful would have had him owning more than half of Arizona.What you're seeing on the screen in The Baron Of Arizona is a small encapsulation of an over 20 year effort by Reavis as played by Vincent Price to pull this thing off and to stay ahead of law enforcement who after a while smelled a very large rat. Reed Hadley who narrated the film also played the part of the rat catcher.Only a small part of the plan called for Price to marry the Peralta heir whom he created and is played by Ellen Drew. That in fact occurred very late in the game. It was only during the Nineties that Price's character marries the Drew character and goes to prison and then only for a few years. My guess is that Reavis copped a plea back in the day just to get it over with.Still The Baron Of Arizona is a fine second film by director Samuel Fuller topped with an impressive performance by Vincent Price before he settled into the horror film genre. But the real story, believe it or not, is more fascinating than this film is.

MartinHafer Although I am a US history teacher, I'd never heard about James Reavis and his claim to be the Baron of Arizonia (most of modern Arizona). So I was fascinated to see a film about this huckster who had the audacity to try to claim this huge chunk of territory as his own private land in the late 19th century. So fascinated that I did a bit of research on Reavis after I finished the movie.It seems that when the US got this land from Mexico, it promised to honor all existing land grants. Reavis, a talented forget and swindler, concocted a complicated scheme to take this land--a claim that ALMOST worked! The film stars Vincent Price in one of his earlier starring roles. While he'd been in Hollywood for about a decade, most of the time he was relegated to supporting roles. Here in THE BARON OF ARIZONA, he was clearly the star and the film benefited from his fine acting. However, you may be surprised to see Price acting a bit more like an action hero at times in the film, as he is much more macho than his usual persona--occasionally resorting to kicking the snot out of his enemies!The film was one of the earliest directorial efforts of the legendary Sam Fuller. While I didn't like how the story was fast and loose with the real facts of the case, Fuller must be commended for making such a professional looking film with only 15 days shooting!! Usually such a quickly made film would be a cheap horror film along the lines of an Ed Wood movie, but this one has all the polish of an A-picture.As for the plot, despite the facts that so much of the script is wrong, it still is a very captivating movie and at least it captures the essence of who Reavis was--even though the details are more than a little wrong. This playing fast and loose with details is fairly common in Hollywood films of the era, so I don't hold this against the film that much.Overall, the film is fascinating, tough to stop watching and a quality production throughout most of the film. However, despite Fuller's reputation for not being a sentimentalist, the last 15 minutes of the film are indeed heavy on sentiment and actually is about the worst part of the film. Plus, in reality Reavis only got a 2 year sentence (not 6) and his wife did indeed leave him--and the way the film ended and how he was caught is pure fiction.For a much more correct version of the real case, see http://jeff.scott.tripod.com/baron.html . It has a link to a very exhaustive site by Michael Marinacci. Oddly, the true facts of the case are in many ways much more interesting than this film!!

tentender Many years ago, at a festival honoring Fuller in Ann Arbor, I saw most of Fuller's pictures. (In fact it was just as his career was coming apart -- he had recently disowned "Shark" a/k/a "Caine" and was contemplating "The Big Red One," still several years off.) The incredibly audacious later pictures, especially the insanely plotted but gorgeous "The Naked Kiss," and the riveting "Underworld U.S.A." were wildly impressive, but it was clear that Fuller had something very special right from the beginning: "I Shot Jesse James" used to great advantage (for once) the disturbingly brutal and sexy talent of John Ireland, and "Park Row" (actually his fifth picture) was a fascinating inside story of the turn of the century newspaper milieu in New York. Still, I was not prepared for "The Baron of Arizona," his second film and one that seems to have provoked little critical interest over the years, to be such a disarmingly lucid and entertaining effort. The title -- suggestive of aristocracy in the lawless Old West -- is provocative -- like Sirk's "Sign of the Pagan" strange and paradoxical, making one ask in advance "What kind of film could this possibly be?" Well, it turns out to be something quite interesting: a study of a unique character, embedded in a historical context. What's most interesting is following one's sympathy and antipathy to the Baron character (played really quite subtly by -- yes! -- Vincent Price). His goal, to achieve through forgeries and deceit not only the ownership to the entire Arizona territory but hereditary title to it as well -- is mad and imaginative enough to elicit strong interest from the viewer -- without actually gaining our sympathy. We want him to succeed because he wants to succeed, but we want him to fail for his own good (and that of his very sympathetically portrayed wife, not to mention all the settlers in Arizona). Fuller manipulates our emotions with great skill, which perhaps should not be surprising: he is clearly one of the born storytellers of late Classic cinema. Ellen Drew plays his wife (and victim) very charmingly, and Beulah Bondi, while given disappointingly little to do, is always a pleasure to watch. The one minor weakness of the film is the slow-paced and clumsy opening -- interestingly shot, with Reed Hadley's back to us as he narrates the story's pre-history, but drearily deliberate. Once the story proper begins, though, the pace is brisk (one is indeed surprised at one point to find that three years have elapsed in the course of one dissolve!), and Hadley ultimately is very good as the forgery expert who is the Baron's downfall.