Watch The Baron of Arizona For Free

Wonderful Movie

Such a frustrating disappointment

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

You must never take what is not yours, devious Vincent Price tells Hus young ward when she brings a book from his library on fraud for him to read to her, making her believe as a young girl that she is the heir to the American territory known as Arizona. While she grows up, he perfects his plan by living among an order of monks who guard priceless local artifacts. Great detail goes into his forgery to prove the claim, gaining their trust until he gets what he needs. Meeting his former ward years later, he charms her into marriage, leading to the take-over and one of the greatest robbery the wild west would ever know.This is one of Vincent Price's greatest non-horror performances, and next to "Dragonwyck" one of his best non-horror villains. Sitting in front of a giant map of Arizona, he has a profile equal to Orson Welles in "Citizen Kane", and as Price continues to gain power, he really becomes Citizen Arizona. Ellen Drew is simply just window dressing as the grown-up version of the naive ward. Excellent production values go into this Q budget drama from the independent Lippert which mainly made cheap crime dramas and westerns. Beaulah Bondi has a tiny role as the nanny Price hires to raise his ward, while Antonio Rosito (" Freaks") has a nice role as the dwarf in the gypsy tribe Price briefly hides out with. He's a villain with a conscience, and after a plea from Drew in an impressive dramatic plea, he finds himself reforming, but at what cost? A gripping climax has Price facing a hangman's rope, and the sweat falling off of Price's brow might have you clutching your seat or sweating a bit as well.

Vincent Price, who I'm a fan of, and the interesting story The Baron of Arizona is based on were the main draws into watching. And while it is a case of the lead performance being better than the film, it is still pretty good and worth watching.Some of the last act is not as good as the rest of the film, The Baron of Arizona does get draggy here and the writing goes rather soft and sentimentalised. The love scenes are clunkily written with more of a sense of unease than affection, Tina Pine's agreed faring worst. There are a couple(big emphasis on couple) of parts where the editing's sloppy, particularly in the otherwise quite suspenseful climax, and one does wish that there was more of Beulah Bondi, a great character actress whose talents are not put to full use due to little screen time.The Baron of Arizona is a good-looking film though, mostly well photographed and the sets are handsome, while the score is rousing and Sam Fuller's direction is wisely straightforward and always dependable. The film is well scripted in at least two thirds of the film, with a lot of detail without being too bogged down in it. The story is briskly paced and every bit as intriguing as the true story, with a number of scenes having genuine energy and tension. All the performances are solid enough but only one is great and that's from Vincent Price. It's not his best performance by all means but it was great to see him so subtle while always commanding, his character change coming across believably and movingly.In conclusion, a pretty good film carried by a great lead performance. 7/10 Bethany Cox

Although I am a US history teacher, I'd never heard about James Reavis and his claim to be the Baron of Arizonia (most of modern Arizona). So I was fascinated to see a film about this huckster who had the audacity to try to claim this huge chunk of territory as his own private land in the late 19th century. So fascinated that I did a bit of research on Reavis after I finished the movie.It seems that when the US got this land from Mexico, it promised to honor all existing land grants. Reavis, a talented forget and swindler, concocted a complicated scheme to take this land--a claim that ALMOST worked! The film stars Vincent Price in one of his earlier starring roles. While he'd been in Hollywood for about a decade, most of the time he was relegated to supporting roles. Here in THE BARON OF ARIZONA, he was clearly the star and the film benefited from his fine acting. However, you may be surprised to see Price acting a bit more like an action hero at times in the film, as he is much more macho than his usual persona--occasionally resorting to kicking the snot out of his enemies!The film was one of the earliest directorial efforts of the legendary Sam Fuller. While I didn't like how the story was fast and loose with the real facts of the case, Fuller must be commended for making such a professional looking film with only 15 days shooting!! Usually such a quickly made film would be a cheap horror film along the lines of an Ed Wood movie, but this one has all the polish of an A-picture.As for the plot, despite the facts that so much of the script is wrong, it still is a very captivating movie and at least it captures the essence of who Reavis was--even though the details are more than a little wrong. This playing fast and loose with details is fairly common in Hollywood films of the era, so I don't hold this against the film that much.Overall, the film is fascinating, tough to stop watching and a quality production throughout most of the film. However, despite Fuller's reputation for not being a sentimentalist, the last 15 minutes of the film are indeed heavy on sentiment and actually is about the worst part of the film. Plus, in reality Reavis only got a 2 year sentence (not 6) and his wife did indeed leave him--and the way the film ended and how he was caught is pure fiction.For a much more correct version of the real case, see http://jeff.scott.tripod.com/baron.html . It has a link to a very exhaustive site by Michael Marinacci. Oddly, the true facts of the case are in many ways much more interesting than this film!!

Vincent Price is so well-known for his role in horror films that his appearance in other kinds of film is mostly forgotten. This is one of the films that illustrates he had far more range than he's often credited for.Likewise, Lippert Films is mostly known for a lot of quickie-cheapy kinds of films; this is a quality exception, even much ahead of its time as a crime caper film.I saw the film when it was first released, and although I was rather young at the time, the story stayed with me for decades. I finally located a copy on a VHS taped, and snapped it up. The film still works, and I'm viewing it from a far different perspective.That the story is mostly based on historic fact is interesting, but like many caper films, what really catches the viewer's interest is the setup of the caper, with all the research, painstaking care, and the like that goes into a committing a brilliant crime. James Reavis was an incredible con man, and watching him set up each forgery is extremely interesting. Effectively, for a brief time, he effectively stole the whole state of Arizona.(Major Spoiler) What's really nice about the film is that the change in Reavis' character is believable, showing that even the most cold-blooded plan can be warmed by affection. That's even reflected as he teeters on the brink of being hanged: his "defense" is that if he's killed, the lynchers would be cheated out of their lands; i.e., that killing him will validate his forgeries! A very memorable film, rather obscure, and highly recommended.