Watch Juarez For Free

it is finally so absorbing because it plays like a lyrical road odyssey that’s also a detective story.

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

I wanted to know more about the Emperor of Mexico, Maximillion, for some reason as it had been on my mind. I knew there was one and he reigned for only a few years before he was put before a firing squad. I wanted to know the character of the man, whether he was a fool or wise, good or evil and a movie if it was true to the actual story as this movie turned out to be, I would be better served. I got more than I bargained for as this movie was very entertaining as well, both by a great script and great acting by Hollywood legends, all of whom are now gone. This was a story worth telling: Maximillion was not a fool, he was quite wise and enlightened with little differences between himself and his arch nemesis the revolutionary Juarez who actually respected and liked each other, though one or the other was committed to a fight to the death, which in the end Juarez ironically imposes upon Maximillion. I referred to a history book on this subject following seeing the movie and I found the history was right on the money and by seeing the movie first, I feel it helped me in understanding this much better.Of particular interest in this movie is the conversation between Jaurez's General Diaz, played by John Garfield, who is being held prisoner and Msximillion who visits him to offer a truce and the Prime Ministership to Jaurez if he will give up the revolution and swear his allegiance to the crown. The two debate the differences between a monarchy for Mexico or a democracy and which one would be better. Maximillion pointed out the flaws that exist in a democracy whereby politicians owe their allegiance first to their political parties and not to the country and that monarchs who have everything are not vulnerable to the corruption that politicians are. I found this argument valid in seeing what our own country is now experiencing, particularly with the Republican Party, where party is placed far above country. There are of course flaws with monarchs as well as some of the worst tyrants have been monarchs. It seems that the quest to find a fool proof form of government has always been with us and there may be no perfect answer. Look for this conversation between Diaz and Maximillion as this alone is well worth watching the movie. The movie left me thinking. Also, you will enjoy the touching and romantic scene between Maximillion and Carlota played by Bette Davis as they stand together in the moon light listening to a woman singing La Paloma. It's a wonderful movie and not one to be missed.

This movie is an unusual biopic. It is supposed to be about the great Mexican president Benito Juárez, but it ends up focusing more on the story of Emperor Maximilien.The story: In the 1860's, the French Emperor Napoleon III (Claude Rains) sends French forces to occupy Mexico, on the pretext of establishing a North American regime of the French empire. Napoleon sends the Austrian Maximilian of Hapsburg (Brian Aherne) and his wife, Charlotte of Belgium (Bette Davis), to be his puppet Emperor and Empress of Mexico. But Benito Juárez (Paul Muni) organizes the Mexican peasantry to fight back against the French.As usual with biopics, this is the American Hollywood version of Mexican history. As the ill-fated Maximilian, Brian Aherne actually has more screen time than the title character. He gives a good performance of a well-meaning but naive emperor who wants to rule the Mexican people justly, but can't understand the concepts of democracy. The American filmmakers obviously decided that it was better to focus on the romantic European characters than on the Mexicans.Paul Muni, meanwhile, has little to do in his role as Juárez. Oh sure, he occasionally makes grim-faced, wise-and-meaningful speeches about democracy (with a portrait of Abraham Lincoln strategically placed on the wall behind Muni, just to make sure we get the point.) But most of the time, he just stands around dressed in black, looking stern and Lincoln-like. Muni has one great scene, where he walks fearlessly toward a firing squad of Mexican soldiers who have been ordered to shoot him. John Wayne should have had such a walk! Bette Davis lends a fairly good (but not great) supporting performance as the troubled Empress Charlotte, who goes mad after Napoleon withdraws from Mexico and abandons her husband to his fate. John Garfield appears as Porfirio Diaz, and Claude Rains and Gale Sondergaard have brief but well-done scenes as Napoleon and his smarmy French Empress. (This was their second film together, after "Anthony Adverse," where they played the villainous couple. They had it down pat by this time.) But the movie really belongs to Aherne, who dominates the screen with his portrait of a "lost emperor"...who is lost in more ways than one.

Although there are some mistakes historically speaking,this is an absorbing screenplay,with superlative performances by Paul Muni,Bette Davis and Brian Aherne,who should have been at the top of the bill too,for he has more scenes than his two co-stars.Muni is almost frightening with his impassive face and his slow delivery.If looks could kill,his certainly would...Davis ,although she does not look like Charlotte physically ,gives a captivating portrayal of the empress.The scene when she prays Virgin Mary is impressive ,but not true: she was not sterile,but she and the emperor used to sleep apart!Their relationship was much more complex than the one depicted by Dieterlé: actually,the emperor was often away,it seemed that their strange love worked from a distance.Little by little,Maximilian lost all interest in power and Charlotte was ruling while he was gone (which often happened)or was staying in his Cuernavaca "paradise" .Aherne is Maximilian in the flesh.It's interesting to notice that his brother Francis-Joseph had deprived him of all his rights and his titles in Austria.Historians generally agree that he would not have accepted the Mexican throne,if Charlotte had not been his wife. the problem is that the film doesn't show us the couple BEFORE they get to Mexico:one thing to bear in mind is that Max did not accept the throne overnight;and many people in Europa (notably Queen Victoria and Empress Elizabeth aka "Sissi" ) had warned them it was more a curse than a blessing.Charlotte (Carlotta) ,someone reportedly said ,wanted to reign over any people anywhere.Sissi called her Max's black angel. Maximilian is depicted as a chivalrous noble sovereign which he was in a way.But of course ,he had lots of (Mexican)lovers since he didn't sleep with his wife Dieterlé does not pass over in silence the obnoxious role played by Napoleon the Third (and wife Eugénie de Montijo).Charlotte does show her contempt:"He is an impostor,his family is not an old one like ours ".The famous scene of the orangeade is included .Today,no serious historian would put forward that the drink was poisoned.But it might be possible that she was poisoned before leaving Mexico.Davis shines when she plays these scenes of madness.The scenes in Paris are not thoroughly accurate though:Eugenie (an incredibly beautiful Sondergaard) met first Carlotta alone in the Grand Hotel -they did not invite her to the Tuileries,which meant a lot about what they felt-Metternich was not the person who helped Carlotta :she first took refuge in the Vatican where the pope had trouble to get rid of her,then her sister-in-law Marie -Henriette ,queen of Belgium,came to her rescue when she was treated almost like a prisoner in Miramar.All that concerns Maximilian's death is accurate ,his last words were "poor Charlotte!"Poor Charlotte indeed.She was to outlive almost everyone,even Empress Eugenie! She died in 1927,after years and years of insanity with occasional moments of lucidity ,notably during WW1.Dieterlé's movie is by no means uninteresting,but it would be exciting to film a remake in the light of the recent works about the Mexican adventure.

This film is a historical drama in which commendable care has been taken to ensure that the historical record is reasonably accurate. In the mid nineteenth century France had troops stationed in Mexico supporting the French settlers and Mexican conservatives who had jointly forced the indigenous President Juarez out of Mexico City after he carried out land reforms that they opposed bitterly. These troops infringed the Monroe doctrine and Napoleon III knew that once the American Civil War was over they would be forced to leave. He attempted to retain French influence by persuading the Mexican conservatives to call upon a member of the Hapsburg Royal family, the liberal minded Ferdinand Maximilian, brother of Emperor Franz Josef of Austria, to accept the throne of Mexico. The story has all the marks of high tragedy. After his marriage to Princess Charlotte the daughter of King Leopold of Belgium, Maximilian had been appointed as Viceroy of the Lombardo Venetian kingdom in Italy, but he was quickly dismissed from this position by Franz Josef who regarded his policies as too liberal. When offered the throne by Mexican monarchists he would not accept at first, but was eventually persuaded to do so by Napoleon, who promised French support if necessary. He reached Mexico in 1864 to find the massive popular support for a Hapsburg monarch, of which he had been assured, did not exist; and the regime relied upon French troops to remain in power. Although Juarez refused him allegiance, Maximilian decided to back the land reforms and other liberal policies Juarez had introduced, thereby seriously antagonising most of his monarchist Mexican supporters and leaving himself very isolated. Around 1865, when the American civil war ended, the U.S.A. started to supply arms to the Mexican revolutionaries and to exert pressure on Napoleon to remove French troops from North America in accordance with the Monroe doctrine. It quickly became clear that Maximilian's position was unsustainable. Napoleon withdrew French troops and urged Maximilian to leave Mexico. He refused to desert his Mexican supporters, and sent Charlotte back to Europe where she made several attempts to obtain assistance for her husband. When these failed she experienced severe emotional disturbances, and publicly accused her family of betraying her husband until they had her declared insane in order to control her. Ultimately Maximilian was captured by the revolutionaries and, after Juarez himself had refused clemency, executed. Charlotte spent the next 60 years in seclusion in various homes eventually dying in Belgium in 1927. A small point of historic interest is that in the Hapsburg family, which was never noted for its progressive views, both Franz-Josef's brother and his son appear to have been natural liberals. (See my review of 'Vizi Privati, Pubbliche Virtu') Could this have been a reaction to close family contact with the ultra-traditional Franz Josef himself? Whilst this story clearly provides the basis for a very dramatic film, Hollywood should never have considered making it. Great historical films usually require the viewer to experience some degree of involvement with the story and/or the cast. (Imagine "Das Boot" created by a studio outside Germany or "The Battle of Britain" by one outside the U.K.) The situation here was made worse by the selection of Bette Davis to play the part of Charlotte (or in Mexican, Carlota). Bette's career was founded on her part in "Of Human Bondage", and she built it on very strong acting, which often appears as overacting. In this case she plays Charlotte as becoming totally insane at a very early stage, which is widely regarded as incorrect. The acting on the Mexican side is no better. Hollywood chose Paul Muni to play the part of Juarez, and he was so far out of his depth that he acted it largely as a sullen, uncommunicative, and not very intelligent lower class native Mexican; which makes nonsense of the charisma that Juarez displayed to his contemporaries. There is a solid performance by Brian Aherne as Maximilian, and there are some fine sequences showing the court of Napoleon III, but Hollywood quickly becomes out of its depth when depicting nineteenth century Mexico, and viewers of this film never really become involved with its characters in the way that is necessary to create a powerful drama. My recommendation is that if you are interested in this short but dramatic interlude in world history you should read about it in a good encyclopaedia, rather than watch this Hollywood version of the events. I had never seen it until it was shown on the TCN TV channel recently, and as Bette Davis was featured in it I decided to watch. I found it overlong and a little tedious even though I am quite interested in Mexican history. In my view this was no more than a marginally competent film, which was probably not worth bringing back into regular circulation. I would prefer to wait until an equivalent film is created in a Mexican studio by a Mexican cast and crew, and with a Director such as Alfonso Cuaron who has shown proved ability to display fine nuances of character on the screen..