Robin Hood of El Dorado

Behind the fanciful title of The Robin Hood of El Dorado, director William A. Wellman serves up a rousing and surprisingly thoughtful Hollywood Western hybrid unique in its time. Part biography, it's based on the real-life story of Mexican farmer Joaquin Murrieta, driven to banditry in Gold Rush-era California after encroaching American gold-seekers and desperadoes cause the deaths of his wife and brother. Part indictment of prejudice and injustice, it quakes with the smoldering fury that energizes Wellman's better-known Wild Boys of the Road and The Ox-Bow Incident. But it's 100% compelling, filmedwith a invigorating sense of spectacle and the wide outdoors, and performed with zest and conviction by Warner Baxter as Murrieta (recalling his Oscar winning* In Old Arizona role as the Cisco Kid), J. Carrol Naish as grisly badman Three-Fingered Jack, and Ann Loring and Margo as the two loves of Murrieta's life. Viva Joaquin!

• biography
• drama
• history