Garden of Evil

Susan Hayward always was a little better at playing the feistier characters, and with her "Leah" role here, she certainly has a good try. She manages to convince three disparate men to travel with her from Mexico to a cave deep inside Apache territory to rescue her gold-mining husband who is trapped there. "Hooker" (Gary Cooper), "Fiske" (Richard Widmark) and "Fuller" (Hugh Marlow) have the uneasiest of truces between them at the best of times, but off they all go on some set-piece escapades to deliver the man. Hayward does plenty of smouldering here, but the rest of the story is pretty devoid of much action. There isn't much chemistry going on as each try to outmanoeuvre the other, stay alive and hopefully reap the $2,000 reward money she has promised them (which she quite possibly hasn't even got!). It does look good, plenty of grand outdoor cinematography, some lovely sunsets etc., but the title of this western is probably the most intriguing thing about it. Pity, had the direction been a bit tighter and more inspired, this could have been much better. Watchable, though, just not memorable.

Susan Hayward always was a little better at playing the feistier characters, and with her "Leah" role here, she certainly has a good try. She manages to convince three disparate men to travel with her from Mexico to a cave deep inside Apache territory to rescue her gold-mining husband who is trapped there. "Hooker" (Gary Cooper), "Fiske" (Richard Widmark) and "Fuller" (Hugh Marlow) have the uneasiest of truces between them at the best of times, but off they all go on some set-piece escapades to deliver the man. Hayward does plenty of smouldering here, but the rest of the story is pretty devoid of much action. There isn't much chemistry going on as each try to outmanoeuvre the other, stay alive and hopefully reap the $2,000 reward money she has promised them (which she quite possibly hasn't even got!). It does look good, plenty of grand outdoor cinematography, some lovely sunsets etc., but the title of this western is probably the most intriguing thing about it. Pity, had the direction been a bit tighter and more inspired, this could have been much better. Watchable, though, just not memorable.