Did John Huston dislike Mexicans? I'd like to say no, but you can't help the feeling that at the end of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre and this, it's the unspeakably vile Mexicans that kill and ruin everything.
A day in the alcohol fuelled life of ex-consul Albert Finney in Mexico, 1938 - he's absolutely brilliant - Oscar but not BAFTA nominated?
It's wonderfully evocative of its place and time - the Day of the Dead, appropriately enough, photographed by Gabriel Figueroa (who'd filmed Huston's Night of the Iguana in 1964) and designed by Gunter Gerszo, who designed Bunuel's first three Mexican films as well as John Ford's The Fugitive (also shot by Figueroa).
It leaves a bitter taste in the mouth but is undeniably powerful and unforgettable. (And, in the early scenes, anyway, really rather funny.) Written by Guy Gallo from Michael Lowry's novel, generally considered unfilmable and packed with literary references which I doubt somehow made it into the film.
With Jacqueline Bisset, Anthony Andrews, Ignacio Lopez Tarso, Katu Jurado (Trapeze, High Noon), James Villiers, Emilio Fernandez.
It was edited by Roberto Silvi, who cut Rory's Way, and before that, the Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, Mississippi Masala, also Wise Blood and The Dead for Huston - Huston didn't seem overly attached to any one editor. Massacre in Rome - with, funnily enough, Richard Burton, was the first film he edited in 1973.
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