Henry Hathaway's Garden of Evil (1954) is a badly overblown Western. The movie's graced by beautiful photography and three excellent leads, yet feels clunky and overdone.American prospectors Hooker (Gary Cooper), Fiske (Richard Widmark) and Luke (Cameron Mitchell) stop in Mexico. They're recruited by Leah Fuller (Susan Hayward) to rescue her husband (Hugh Marlowe), trapped in a gold mine. They find Fulller and the gold, but tempers flare as Hooker and Fiske grow attracted to Leah. Hostile Apache Indians promise to make things even more unpleasant.
Garden of Evil's draw comes from Hathaway's gorgeous direction. Quite an expensive show, Garden shot on location in Tepotzolan and Guanajanto, Mexico. Milton R. Krasner's widescreen photography leaves a deep impression, contrasting our heroes against fathomless backdrops of sandy mountains and sagebrush deserts. The climactic action scenes are impressive, especially the incredible cliff-side stunt work. Garden's helped too by Bernard Herrman's robust score, which grants even banal scenes pathos.
But Garden falls down on a narrative level. Frank Fenton and William Tunberg's script feels clunky, overly verbose: Hooker and Fiske start trading arch banter, then endlessly debate their motivations. Leah's ultimately a headstrong temptress who can't help making trouble: she earns neither sympathy nor respect. Even at 100 minutes Garden seems overlong, with ponderous dialog that neither develops characters nor advances plot. Westerns don't need complex plots to work, but Garden of Evil stretches its story thin.
Gary Cooper plays the taciturn straight arrow; Richard Widmark, the snarky sidekick; Susan Hayward the tough femme fatale. These roles aren't stretches for any of the stars, but they play well off each other. Cameron Mitchell, unsurprisingly, is an irredeemable cad; Hugh Marlowe a loser. Rita Moreno appears briefly as a nightclub singer. This is Typecasting 101, yet it doesn't damage Garden overmuch.
At film's end, Gary Cooper stands against a gorgeous sunset declaiming a tin-earned epigram about Man's corrupt nature. This juxtaposition of beauty and pomposity sums Garden of Evil up in a nut shell. It's hard to dislike such a visually accomplished film, until a character opens their mouths.
