They Came to Cordura (1959)

The Pancho Villa Expedition—officially known in the United States as the Mexican Expedition and sometimes colloquially referred to as the Punitive Expedition—was a military operation conducted by the United States Army against the paramilitary forces of Mexican revolutionary Francisco "Pancho" Villa from 1916 to 1917 during the Mexican Revolution. The expedition was launched in retaliation for Villa's attack on the town of Columbus, New Mexico, and was the most remembered event of the Border War. The expeditions had one objective: to capture Villa dead or alive and put a stop to any future forays by his paramilitary forces on American soil.After contact with the enemy, and after losing many men, five men were nominated for the Medal of Honor. Since the army needed living heroes to prepare the nation for its likely entry into WWI, Major Thomas Thorn (Gary Cooper), an awards officer, escorts the nominees, Lt. William Fowler (Tab Hunter), Sgt. John Chawk (Van Heflin), Cpl. Milo Trubee (Richard Conte), Pvt. Andrew Hetherington (Michael Callan), and Pvt. Renziehausen (Dick York), back to headquarters. This film is the story of that journey, and Thorn's exploration of the character of heroes.Adelaide Geary (Rita Hayworth), an American woman who owns the ranch where the battle was fought, is sent back with them on charge of treason for aiding Villistas against American soldiers, even though she had no choice.Although Hayworth and Cooper both gave impressive performances, Van Heflin was the standout as a brutish sergeant, especially since he was acting against type, having played decent men forced into heroism during his best-known films, Shane (1953) and 3:10 to Yuma (1957).

In 1916, an army major leads a woman prisoner and a disagreeable group of soldiers through rugged terrain near the Mexican border. This is a standard Western that takes a while to get going and then goes on a bit too long, but is helped by a good cast. Cooper, who was ailing at the time and would make only two more films, is solid as a cowardly officer tasked with finding candidates for the Congressional Medal of Honor. Hayworth is quite alluring as an American accused of abetting Mexico against her country. The familiar cast includes Heflin and Conte as the villains, Keith as a colonel seeking glory, as well as future TV actors York and Platt. This was the only Western for Rossen, an uneven director.

I couldn't get over the fact that a lot of this film was "Sahara" as a western. I have read some negative comments, but I don't think it was too bad. Gary Cooper was definitely too old for the part. The characters were not very real. A lot of the dialog seemed forced and out of place. I got the impression that money was available to make a movie and someone decided that Gary Cooper was a good box office draw. Like I said, it's an OK movie, it didn't look like anyone was actually directing it. A trek across the desert will always appeal to me, and most of the desert scenes were convincing. It's good enough to have on while you're doing something else, like cruising the internet or cleaning your Glock.

Never viewed this film until recently and was completely surprised by the role Gary Cooper, (Maj. Thomas Thorn) played as a rather soft spoken Army Awards officer who was in charge of giving out Congressional Medals of Honor to a group of men. These men fought in the war of 1916 against Pancho Villa and Maj. Thorn rounded up all these men and one woman, Adelaide Geary, (Rita Hayworth) who befriended Pancho Villa's men at her ranch and was being brought back to Cordura for a trial. The story revolves around all these soldiers, Sgt. John Chawk, (Van Heflin), Cpl. Milo Trubee, (Richard Conti) and Lt. William Fowler, (Tab Hunter) who were all awarded this high military award. However, there is a great deal of trouble among the men as they find out about each others hidden past and dark secrets. The men lose their self-control with only one woman among them and there are many problems that occur through out the film. This is a very unusual Gary Cooper film with him being labeled as a coward and good for nothing.