Old Gringo (1989)

When school teacher Harriet Winslow goes to Mexico to teach, she is kidnapped by Gen. Tomas Arroyo and his revolutionaries. An aging American, Ambrose "Old Gringo" Bierce also in Mexico, ... See full summary »

Director:

Luis Puenzo

Writers:

Carlos Fuentes (novel), Aída Bortnik (screenplay),

Stars:

Jane Fonda, Gregory Peck, Jimmy Smits

1 nomination.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Jane Fonda	...	Harriet Winslow
Gregory Peck	...	Ambrose Bierce
Jimmy Smits	...	Gen. Tomas Arroyo
Patricio Contreras	...	Col. Frutos Garcia
Jenny Gago	...	La Garduna
Gabriela Roel	...	La Luna
Sergio Calderón	...	Zacarias (as Sergio Calderon)
Guillermo Ríos	...	Monsalvo (as Guillermo Rios)
Jim Metzler	...	Ron
Samuel Valadez De La Torre	...	Consul Saunders
Anne Pitoniak	...	Mrs. Winslow
Pedro Armendáriz Jr.	...	Pancho Villa (as Pedro Armendariz Jr.)
Stanley Grover	...	Gen. Saunders
Josefina Echánove	...	Clementina (as Josefina Echanove)
Pedro Damián	...	Capt. Ovando (as Pedro Damian)

Storyline

When school teacher Harriet Winslow goes to Mexico to teach, she is kidnapped by Gen. Tomas Arroyo and his revolutionaries. An aging American, Ambrose "Old Gringo" Bierce also in Mexico, befriends Gen. Arroyo and meets Harriet. Bierce is a famous writer, who knowing that he is dying, wishes to keep his identity secret so he can determine his own fate. Though he likes Arroyo, Bierce tries to provoke the General's anger whenever possible in an attempt to get himself killed, thus avoiding suffering through his illness. Winslow is intrigued by both Bierce and Arroyo, and the men are in turn attracted to her. She becomes romantically involved with Arroyo. When Winslow learns of Bierce's true identity (a writer whose work she has loved and respected for years), she is singlemindedly determined to fulfill his dying wish.

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Plot Keywords:

mexico | writer | general | revolutionary | interracial relationship | 

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Taglines:

A woman inspired by a man of dreams swept into the arms of a general, and drawn into a worlds of danger.

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Genres:

Adventure | History | Romance

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Certificate:

R

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English Spanish

Release Date:

6 October 1989 (USA)

Also Known As:

Gringo viejo

Filming Locations:

Durango, Mexico

Box Office

Gross:

$3,574,256 (USA)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Columbia Pictures Corporation, Fonda Films

Technical Specs

Runtime:

120 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

The lines Bierce quotes by the fire before the "skeletons" scene, are the last lines of his famous short story 'An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge'.

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Goofs

At the end of the movie as Harriet Winslow is crossing the Rio Grande, the river flows from right to left. If she were actually crossing the border from Mexico to America (northward), the river would flow from left to right (eastward).

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Quotes

Gen. Tomas Arroyo: Do you want to drink with me?
Ambrose Bierce: I thought you didn't drink.
Gen. Tomas Arroyo: Oh, I don't drink with the living. But tonight I come to visit the dead, to celebrate with them. Do you visit your dead ones, amigo?
Ambrose Bierce: No, but sometimes they come to visit me.

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Connections

Featured in American Masters: A Conversation with Gregory Peck (1999)

User Reviews

Suicide By Revolution

Mexico in the teen years of the last century was no place to be, not even for Mexicans as the country broke down completely after the overthrow of dictator Porfirio Diaz. A lot of people grabbed for power, including one Pancho Villa who got emboldened enough to cross the U.S. border and shoot up Columbus, New Mexico. That got Woodrow Wilson to sending the army to capture Villa without success.

But that's getting way ahead of this story. It concerns American writer Ambrose Bierce who went to revolutionary Mexico and disappeared into obscurity much in the manner of the French poet Francois Villon. The plot of this film offers a theory as to what could have happened to Bierce.

Dominating the film is Gregory Peck in the title role. He captures Bierce in all of his sardonic cynicism for which his writing lives on. This Bierce has all the reason to just want to leave his world behind, his wife had recently died, but not after being discovered to be involved with another man. Two of his three children, both of his sons died violent deaths. Bierce was a man who felt he had no reason to live on.

Peck gets involved with two other people in a romantic triangle, Jane Fonda as a spinster who gets hired to tutor some landowner children and Jimmy Smits who's using the revolution to settle some personal scores with that same landowner family. In fact Smits gets himself rather caught up in the whole ambiance of being to the manor born with what he feels are good reasons.

All though all three of the leads have been in much better product, Old Gringo still is a good piece of cinema and does capture some of the anarchy that was revolutionary Mexico.