Juarez (1939)

Louis Napoleon III takes advantage of the American Civil War to circumvent the Monroe Doctrine and expand his power by helping Emperor Maximillian Hapsburg to add Mexico to his empire. of Mexico.

Director:

William Dieterle

Writers:

John Huston (screen play), Æneas MacKenzie (screen play),

Stars:

Paul Muni, Bette Davis, Brian Aherne

Nominated for 2 Oscars.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Paul Muni	...	Benito Juarez
Bette Davis	...	Carlota
Brian Aherne	...	Maximilian von Hapsburg
Claude Rains	...	Napoleon III
John Garfield	...	Porfirio Diaz
Donald Crisp	...	Marechal Bazaine
Joseph Calleia	...	Alejandro Uradi
Gale Sondergaard	...	Empress Eugenie
Gilbert Roland	...	Col. Miguel Lopez
Henry O'Neill	...	Miguel Miramon
Harry Davenport	...	Dr. Samuel Basch
Louis Calhern	...	LeMarc
Walter Kingsford	...	Prince Richard Metternich
Georgia Caine	...	Lady in Waiting
Montagu Love	...	Jose de Montares

Storyline

The newly-named Emperor Maximillian, the only monarch of the Second Mexican Empire, arrives in Mexico in the early 1860s with his wife Carlotta to face popular sentiment favoring Benito Juarez and popular demand for democracy. With an elite group of Mexican monarchists, Maximillian tries to appease the democratic Mexicans but he fails. Abraham Lincoln continues to support Juarez and asks the French to withdraw support for Maximilian. Carlotta goes to France to plead with Napoleon III, to no avail.

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Plot Keywords:

mexican | mexico | 1860s | american civil war | french | 

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Taglines:

A Mighty King . . . A Proud Queen ! . . . pitted against a humble man who had the courage to defy the throne !

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Genres:

Biography | Drama | History | Romance

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Certificate:

Approved

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English Spanish

Release Date:

10 June 1939 (USA)

Also Known As:

Juárez

Filming Locations:

Calabasas, California, USA

Company Credits

Production Co:

Warner Bros

Technical Specs

Runtime:

125 min 121 min (Turner library print) 132 min (original release)

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

An English version of Franz Werfel's play titled "Juarez and Maximilian" opened on Broadway at the Guild Theatre on October 11, 1926 and ran for 48 performances. This stage version's cast included Alfred Lunt and Edward G. Robinson. The film is an extremely loose adaptation of Werfel's play. Juarez never appears in the stage version. The only one of Werfel's works to be quite faithfully adapted into a Hollywood film was "The Song of Bernadette", in 1943. (Werfel's play "Jacobowsky and the Colonel" was filmed by Hollywood as a Danny Kaye vehicle and retitled "Me and the Colonel".)

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Goofs

When Napoleon lll is informed in a letter that Robert E. Lee has been defeated at Gettysburg, he responds by paraphrasing Lincoln's famous Gettysburg Address by calling democracy as government for the cattle, by the cattle, etc. He couldn't have known Lincoln's rhetorical flourish because the actual speech was given until mid November 1863.

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Quotes

Empress Carlotta von Hapsburg: More than an empire is in danger. My husband's life. And knowing this, you could abandon him? Answer me, sire!
Emperor Louis Napoleon III: Regardless of my personal sentiments, I am, as you see, Madame, in the hands of my ministers.
Empress Carlotta von Hapsburg: In the hands of your ministers! Was it you or your ministers who conceived the plan to mask your infamies behind my husband's noble name? Who tricked him into accepting the throne by means of a pretended plebiscite? Who assured him of French troops and French funds until the day that the ...
[...]

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Connections

Featured in Stardust: The Bette Davis Story (2006)

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Soundtracks

"La Paloma"
(1861) (uncredited)
Written by Sebastián Yradier
Sung offscreen twice by an unidentified woman
Reprised by an unidentified woman before Maximilian's execution
Variations played as part of the score

User Reviews

Big actors, small roles

An amazing conflagration of actors populates the cast of 1939's "Juarez" -- Brian Aherne, Paul Muni, Bette Davis, Claude Rains, John Garfield, Gale Sondergaard, Donald Crisp, Gilbert Roland, and Louis Calhern. More amazing is the size of many of their roles - small! It shows that Warner Brothers put everything behind this epic film.

The story concerns the short reign of Maximilian von Hapsburg (Aherne) as Emperor of Mexico, seduced into taking the position by Napoleon III (Rains) who convinces him that the Mexican people want a monarchy. They don't. Opposing Maximilian is the man of the people, Benito Juarez (Muni), who has the support of the United States. Both Maximilian and Juarez want many of the same things, but Maximilian's hard work to unite the Mexican people and stop the fighting fails.

Though the title is "Juarez," the workhorse role belongs to the underrated Brian Aherne, an excellent actor from the theater who took second place to Errol Flynn at Warner Brothers. Though superstardom eluded him, he was a brilliant actor and a handsome man who turned in many great performances during a 43-year career. His Maximilian is gentle, likable, strong, and sympathetic. He gets third billing to Muni and Davis. Davis plays the Empress Carlota, Maximilian's wife. It's a secondary role but she has a huge, dramatic scene when Carlota returns to France to insist that Napoleon III keep his troops in Mexico. One of the best moments in the film is Carlota, going mad and believing the French court is trying to poison her, running out into the night, her white dress slowly disappearing. Davis wears magnificent gowns and has dark hair that seems to emphasize her huge eyes even more. She looks quite beautiful and gives a solid performance as a fragile woman devoted to her husband.

Paul Muni's Juarez is stiff, and he looks and acts as if he's embalmed. Muni was a great actor who delved deeply into his roles, and it's not clear what he was thinking when he gave this performance. Undoubtedly he had researched Benito Juarez to the ground and was giving an exact representation of him. But as Bette Davis once said, "True acting is larger than life." Muni needed something more for this role but doesn't supply it. John Garfield's Porfirio Diaz is odd casting. He makes a little attempt at an accent; underneath that dark makeup is still John Garfield. Supposedly his role was cut down. Back in 1939, audiences were just getting to know him, so his performance probably held up well back then. Nowadays one only thinks, "Why is John Garfield playing a Mexican?" "Juarez" is rich in detail - it occasionally is plodding and runs a bit long in an effort to supply the historic happenings. But it is well worth seeing for the performances, the story, and those Orry-Kelly gowns.