This is one of five biopics that William Dieterle made for producer Hal B. Wallis at Warner Bros in as many years and the third to star Paul Muni in the title role. Excellent production values suffice it to say. Tony Gaudio is behind the camera and there is a symphonic score by Korngold arranged and orchestrated by Hugo Freidhofer with an effective use of 'La Paloma'. Film historian David Thompson has dismissed these biopics as being Germanic and stagey. He is fully entitled to his opinion of course but I think his verdict to be harsh especially when one considers the first class actors, both leading and supporting, who appeared in these films. The characters that linger longest in the memory from this are those of Brian Aherne as Maximilian and Bette Davis as his wife Carlotta. Aherne has never been better quite frankly while Davis is absolutely stupendous in the role. Their scenes together are beautifully understated and the scene where she confronts the ignominious Louis Napoleon, played with relish by Claude Rains, is magnificent. Her descent into madness is subtly handled. Interesting also to see as future president Diaz that human dynamo John Garfield whose greatest roles were still to come. Paul Muni I must confess has never really been my cup of tea but that is only my opinion. The 'execution' of monarchs understandably has always caused more emotional outrage and controversy than that of dictators. In this film at any rate Juarez feels remorse but his refusal to grant Maximilian a pardon is certainly a blot on his historical reputation. Excellent film by a European director who adapted to and thrived under the Hollywood system. As an historical document it is certainly off-centre in many respects but as a piece of entertainment it certainly hits the mark.

It's possible and safe to say that Paul Muni was probably the best thing that had happened to movies when it was still in its infancy because of his preference for playing flesh and blood characters instead of matinée idols. Even in average movies such as BORDERTOWN, where he reportedly moved in with his Mexican chauffeur in order to replicate a flawless Mexican accent, his performance can't be said to rely on being handsome. He might not have needed using make up to look Mexican, but the times back were such that to act a certain part one had to look it, according to social conventions.

By the time JUAREZ came into fruition, Muni was already deeply involved with Muni and no one else. It's possible that his very talent made him something of a monster -- he'd developed, according to biographical accounts, an increasing list of character quirks -- and his joining the team producing this movie significantly altered the end result. JUAREZ from there on, instead of being a historical drama focusing on the Hapsbourgs -- Maximilian and Charlotte, later known as Empress Carlotta -- now had a third element to expand on: the life of Benito Juarez.

It's actually not a bad thing. As an epic, the story shifts from the Hapsbourgs to Juarez with little chops here and there in its editing and even that is a product of its time. The main issue I have with the movie is that Paul Muni's characterization is about as interesting as a honey drip or a metronome. A slow, almost slurred speech, long gazes, even slower movements: again, this is the interpretation of one man trying to divorce himself as much as possible from overacting, but by doing so, went so far left he swung all the way back into the right. Again, the misconceptions of not understanding a culture or its people compounding itself with an over-sized ego and the demands to draw attention to oneself while looking the part does not make for a great performance.

JUAREZ also suffers from the addition of John Garfield into the mix. A major blunder, and more proof that the misunderstanding of ethnicities does not only extend itself to Blacks or Asians but Hispanics as well as shown here. Garfield, as Hispanic as a Martian is human, speaks his lines like Speedy Gonzalez would and sucks the life out of Porfirio Diaz, a major player in Mexican history, here reduced to something laughable. Unless you truly know Latino culture you cannot say you've made a "great movie" with dead-on performances and believable locations. There are scenes which make Mexicans look little more than idiots who couldn't know better and robs the movie from the accuracy of its story. Hollywood needed to do its homework and did not then, but then again... this is not a surprise.

If anything, Brian Aherne and Bette Davis come off better in their story lines, but again, seen from a Mexican point of view, their actual involvement there only extends itself from 1864 - 1867, the period JUAREZ chooses to frame its story. Aherne for the most seems to be caught in a position he had little control over, but is shown as a man with good intentions. Davis, in her few scenes, makes the most striking transition, from dressed in white to grey to black as her character goes progressively insane, and the moment this happens -- when Carlotta begs for Louis Napoleon's intervention in the matter involving Mexico and later goes insane there is striking. When she recovers from a fainting spell she begins having visions and runs into the black, screaming. Excellent.

I would recommend viewing the Mexican miniseries "El Vuelo del Aguila" which roughly translates as "The Flight of the Eagle". Much more detailed in its exposition, it shows a more accurate and epic depiction of Mexican history, seen from Porfirio Diaz's perspective, from 1830 to 1915. JUAREZ will never hold a candle to this miniseries.

The story of Archduke Maximilian, the Austrian nobleman who was induced by Napoleon III to assume the role of monarch of Mexico in 1863, displacing Benito Juárez, Mexico's liberal president, played by Paul Muni. His enthronement was endorsed by the wealthy land-holding aristocrats of Mexico -- eighty-five families. The US was too busy fighting its own Civil War to bother with violations of the Monroe Doctrine. Juárez and his armies put up a stiff fight, and eventually Napoleon withdrew his French forces from Mexico. Maximilian and two of his loyal Mexican were captured and executed. Maximilian's wife, "the mad Carlota", was hospitalized in Europe and finally sent to a sanitarium.

The film sticks pretty closely to historical fact, as far as a non-historian can tell. It's gripping. The hero is not Juárez at all but Maximilian. And, as presented here, it's an unalloyed epic tragedy. Shakespeare could have done wonders with it. Brian Aherne is Maximilian -- "Max", as his wife, Bette Davis calls him -- is a dignified man full of good intentions, whose policies (with one notable exception) followed those of Benito Juárez. Both were determined to promote equality and justice in Mexico. Again and again, Max defies the eight-five tycoons in favor of the ordinary people, most of whom can't read or write.

The way Aherne plays Max, he's so gentle and dignified that he's almost effeminate, an impression supported by his hair style, which appears to be braided and coiled atop his head, and by this spectacularly unwholesome looking set of muttonchop whiskers. He believes that the Mexican people have invited him to become their emperor by means of a referendum, not realizing until too late that the referendum was rigged. He's a man of principle tempered by good sense. The ongoing war is nettlesome to him and he sends a messenger to Juárez with an offer to become Prime Minister of Mexico. All that separates them, as Juárez observes, is the word "democracy." Muni plays the character as a pompous humanitarian, full of folksy liberal pieties. Hs movements are slow and deliberate. He overacts underacting. Unlike Max, he's never in doubt about anything, which makes him rather dull. And, in a mistaken attempt to have him resemble the historical Max, make up has turned Muni into a clayish lump. And Muni delivers lines that seem made of lead. "In a monarchy, the government changes the people. In a democracy, the people change the government." Clunk.

Actually, Juárez does seem like a law-abiding populist but he's about as yielding as reenforced concrete. He spurns Max's offer of Prime Minister, preferring war to compromise. Max, on the other hand gives a reasonably good argument in favor of kingship. A king, belonging to no party, owes no one anything and therefore can be impartial, while a president is beholden to the particular forces that elected him.

I called the argument "reasonably good" because Mexico in the 1860s, with most of its population illiterate farmers, may not have been entirely ready for a republic. What followed Juárez was a series of dictators, factional disputes and revolutions, including a raid across the border into the USA by Pancho Villa in 1917. Interesting parallel: When Max's French troops try to fight Juárez's army, that army dissolves into the general population in its own neighborhood. If you can't find them, you can't fight them. Ditto after Villa's raid into Columbus, New Mexico. The US Army sent a large expeditionary force into Mexico to find and punish Pancho Villa and his army. But there was nothing to fight. The soldiers had turned into farmers.

This was released in 1939 and lest we miss the point of dictatorship vs. democracy, the appearance of Archduke Maximilian is accompanied by the strains of "Deutschland Über Alles." Some other notes: Back in the USA, the South wanted to invade Mexico and turn it into a slave-holding nation, while slavery had been outlawed two generations earlier. And some of Lincoln's advisers wanted him to declare war on Mexico to deflect attention from the Confederate victories during the early years of the Civil War. (Mexico as low-hanging fruit.) In the end, the populist movement prevailed in Mexico; the vast haciendas were broken up and the land redistributed to farming families, each of which got enough land to support itself. The irony was that the birth rate became so high that the family farm could no longer feed so many people, so many of the farmers migrated to the cities in search of work, found little, and established the squatter settlements in shacks of corrugated tin and cardboard that now surround Mexico City. That's kind of off topic, an obiter dictum. Let's just say that in this movie, Juárez comes out on top but it's a tragic victory.