Viva Zapata!

Directed by Elia Kazan during one of the best streaks by a director, and starring Marlon Brando during one of the best streaks by an actor, it turns out that the strongest thing about Viva Zapata! is the script by the great novelist John Steinbeck, which is tough and unflinching.

Emiliano Zapata was a Mexican revolutionary who rose from peasant to the presidency. I mentioned I saw this film last night to a co-worker, who is from Mexico, and he said Zapata is the man in his country, the equivalent of Lincoln in ours. Judging by Brando's scintillating performance, I believe it.

The film starts with Zapata as one of a delegation of Indian farmers to the pompous and corrupt President Diaz. Zapata manages to say things to get his name circled on the president's list, and he does more than that by taking to the hills as a nuisance. His closest associates are his temperamental brother, Anthony Quinn, and later Fernando Aguirre, played steely by Joseph Wiseman (who would later play a Chinese supervillain in Doctor No). .

Zapata is incorruptible but proud--he is indignant that his girlfriend's father won't let them marry (she's Jean Peters) and he's also got a quick temper, beating a gentleman who has started beating a young boy for eating food for horses. "The boy was hungry," Zapata keeps saying.

Eventually the armed resistance seeks to drive Diaz out of the country. Zapata becomes a general and they succeed, with Pancho Villa commanding the north. Villa wants no part of being president, so Zapata takes the job, but before that he has to deal with corrupt generals and the betrayal of those closest to him.

Steinbeck's script is sour on politics, and if any of this is true (some is not--Zapata was not illiterate, apparently) it's easy to see why. Everyone is after a quick buck, but Zapata is not interested in money. It's hard for idealists to survive after a revolution, because everyone else reverts back to the craven interests.

Brando was nominated for an Oscar, even though he doesn't exactly look Mexican. It was the second of four in a row he would receive in the early '50s. Quinn, who was half-Mexican, won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor.