SANTIAGO is the name of a city on the island of Cuba. For a country that's only 90 miles from Key West, Florida I can only think of a handful of films set in Cuba. Carol Reed's OUR MAN IN HAVANA (1959) based on the Graham Greene novel was actually filmed in Havana. Both Richard Lester's CUBA (1979) and Sydney Pollack's HAVANA (1990) have plots revolving around the Castro/Batista period in the late 1950s. But Gordon Douglas's SANTIAGO tackles the other big historical event in Cuba's history - the fight to kick the Spanish out of Cuba at the end of the 19th Century right before the Spanish-American War. Besides the title, SANTIAGO caught my attention due to its leading man -- Alan Ladd.
Just like CASABLANCA, SANTIAGO was made by Warner Brothers although SANTIAGO'S budget seems a little tighter and leaner. What it lacks in big production value, it makes up for with crackerjack dialogue, colorful characters, a leading lady who's as tough and brave as the men, and two protagonists who want to kill each other but not until they get paid for their trouble. Directed by Gordon Douglas and co-written by Martin Rackin and John Twist (based on Rackin's novel), SANTIAGO starts out with a bang plus plenty of exposition and history right off the bat.
It's 1898. Cuba is a reluctant colony of Spain, itching to break away from it's European master. In Florida, former soldier Caleb "Cash" Adams (Alan Ladd) and his men are running guns via Tampa, Florida to send to Cuba to fight the Spanish. While en route to Tampa with a wagon train of weapons (in boxes discreetly labeled "sewing machines"), Cash and his partners Trasker (Paul Fix), Lobo (Royal Dano), and Digger (L.Q. Jones) are ambushed by a group of hijackers. Trasker takes a bullet graze but Cash manages to wound one of the hijackers. They reach Tampa. Cash visits a bar called El Gato Negro (the Black Cat) to meet Cuban agents Lorenzo (Edward Colmans) and Dominguez (Rico Alaniz) and finish the deal. The two Cubans don't have the money with them. Now, Cash must deliver the guns in person to the Cuban revolutionaries to get paid. Cash agrees but doubles the price to $200,000 for the guns.
A sternwheeler called Vicksburg, captained by ex-Confederate and current freedom fighter Sidewheel Jones (Chill Wills) has been hired to ferry Cash and his men first to Haiti and then sneak past the Spanish blockade to Cuba. When they arrive at the dock, Cash runs into an old nemesis Clay Pike (Lloyd Nolan), another soldier of fortune, and his unscrupulous looking band of men. Pike happens to be sporting a recent gun wound (remember that attempted hijack on Cash at the beginning?). There is no love lost between Cash and Pike. Adding to the tension, they discover a beautiful and mysterious woman on board. Sidewheel Jones calls her "the Cuban Joan of Arc." Her name is Dona Isabella (Rossana Podesta) and she will aid the gun runners to bring the guns to her people. The Vicksburg reaches Haiti. They take a carriage ride to a plantation where Isabella introduces them to Jose Marti (Ernest Sarracino), an exiled Cuban leader. Marti only has $25,000 to pay each of them. It turns out Isabella is the cashier as she hand Cash and Pike their first installment. Marti promises the men they will get the remainder of their money when the weapons reach Cuba. Isabella's little brother Johnny (Francisco Ruiz) is also staying with Marti. The two siblings have a brief reunion.
The boat moves on for Cuba. When they're not trying to woo Isabella, Cash and Pike have a few scuffles with each other. The Vicksburg manages to sneak past the blockade. As they get close to the Cuban shore, drums warn them of a Spanish cannons. Jones takes the Vicksburg up a river. Led by Isabella, the men swim to the shore and knock out the cannons. For a brief moment, both sides are working as a team. It doesn't last long. Jones and his sidekick Sam (Don Blackman) discover a stowaway on the ship - Isabella's little brother Johnny. The paddleboat reaches the meeting point. Cuban locals unload the guns but Cash and Pike still don't see any money. They stay with their merchandise as the wagons head out through the jungle to deliver them to a Cuban general named Maseo.
Spanish soldiers arrive and board the Vicksburg. Sidewinder Jones and Sam have a surprise waiting for them, blowing the soldiers and themselves up with dynamite. Cash, Isabella, Pike and the rest reach the mountain pass at the top of the island only to discover the Spanish have built a fort in the middle of it. After Cash and Trasker rescue little Johnny from some vile Spanish soldiers interrogating the young boy, they tie the dead soldiers to a wagon and send it ablaze into the heart of the fort. As it burns, the convoy makes a run past it. The Spanish give chase but they're caught in a final shootout with the renegades and the revolutionaries. Cash and Pike have their final showdown. The group reaches the waterfall only to learn General Maseo is trapped by the Spanish further ahead. In the end, Cash still never collects his money but he's now fully committed to the Cuban cause as he, Isabella, and the remaining survivors continue on to join up with General Maseo.
SANTIAGO is a taut, swift film that has touches of John Huston and Sam Peckinpah themes in its story. The tale of men's greed leading to failure and possible death echoes Huston films like THE MALTESE FALCON (1941) or THE TREASURE OF SIERRA MADRE (1948). Cash and Pike both have weapons to sell but when they don't get payment on delivery in Tampa, they actually have to go to Cuba to collect. A dangerous proposition that turns deadly. After someone eulogizes a comrade killed in a skirmish as having principals, another responds "Principals? What did it get him? A hole in the head and a hole in the ground."
Both protagonists are anti-heroes in the same vein as the characters in Sam Peckinpah's THE WILD BUNCH (1969). Cash Adams and his partner Trasker are dishonorably discharged soldiers. Adams ordered handcuffs removed from an Indian prisoner who later escaped because of Trasker's drunken negligence. Now, Cash is sticking it to the army that disgraced him by stealing their weapons and selling them. Pike is a southern rebel who sold guns to the Apaches who used them against U.S. soldiers. Cash is a Yankee; Pike a Confederate. The tension between Cash and Pike, the back and forth verbal and physical attacks, make for enticing drama. "You're everything I hate, " Pike sneers to Cash. Only the lure of a big payoff keeps Pike from trying to kill Cash sooner. But we know it won't end well for one of them.
Throw in an attractive woman between Cash and Pike and you have the perfect storm. But Isabella isn't just a pretty face. She's a freedom fighter, willing to die for a cause. She's not afraid to mix it up, jumping into a river to lead the men to knock out a battery of Spanish cannons. Rossana Podesta who plays Isabella was actually Italian and not Cuban. SANTIAGO isn't a romanticized adventure film. Like Huston and Peckinpah films, it has a fatalistic flavor to it. What begins as a historical adventure film becomes a suicide mission to Cuba. The filmmakers shockingly kill off a couple of characters you would normally expect to survive the film. But their deaths spearhead SANTIAGO forward. There's even a cat fight between two prostitutes in the Black Cat bar that is vicious and funny, setting the tone for SANTIAGO'S occasional brutality. How many movies can boast that?
SANTIAGO is somewhere between an A and B picture. The opening attempted hijack scene, the burning of the Spanish fort, and the final battle in the mountains are well delivered action sequences. But the film's limited budget comes into play when Sidewheel blows up the Vicksburg. This big moment happens off screen. We only see a plume of smoke. Even the explosion sound effect is neither powerful or dramatic. Granted, it would have been hard to blow up a large sternwheel paddleboat but couldn't the filmmakers have tried blowing up a model? Watching the convoy trek through the Warner Brothers jungle backlot reminded me of a similar scene from Michael Curtiz's THE SEA HAWK (1940). The scene works but there's a feeling of deja vu. We've seen that jungle location before.
Alan Ladd was no Humphrey Bogart but he's a close second. He didn't have Bogart's mannerisms or distinctive voice. But Ladd had matinee idol looks and a self-assured, sardonic manner. Ladd often played loners. His characters had a rough romantic charm even if he never quite caught the girl. Ladd definitely picked up the mantle from Bogart with his tough guy performances. In SANTIAGO, with his panama hat and white suit, Ladd's Cash Adams is like a white knight, delivering hope to the Cuban revolutionaries. Ladd delivers some classic tough guy lines. "I'd rather be wrong and alive then right and dead," he tells the Cuban agents in Tampa who tried to double cross him. When they present him with Cuban cigars instead of cold hard cash, he tells them, "My bank doesn't cash cigars." For a man who went to West Point and still wears a ring with their motto "Honor. Duty. Country", Ladd's Adams is a man without a country. The military has turned its back on him. But Adams ultimately finds a new country to fight for. Cuba.
Ladd's nemesis is the charismatic Lloyd Nolan who plays Pike. Nolan nearly steals the movie with his irascible personality. Nolan is a familiar face and voice for me from 1970s television shows, often playing doctors. But in SANTIAGO, Nolan's Pike is an oily, double-crossing, backstabbing Rebel who would sell his sister for a buck. Whereas Cash is smooth and respectful with Isabella, Pike says exactly what's on his mind, unfiltered. I'd never seen Nolan play such an evil character. Nolan appeared in 156 performances in movies and television with a nice turn in one of his final roles in the excellent Woody Allen comedy/drama HANNAH AND HER SISTERS (1986).
There are some other Sam Peckinpah connections to SANTIAGO. L.Q. Jones who plays Digger, one of Cash's comrades, appears as a ghoulish bounty hunter in Peckinpah's classic THE WILD BUNCH. Jones also co-starred in Peckinpah's MAJOR DUNDEE (1965) and THE BALLAD OF CABLE HOGUE (1970). Coincidentally, Pike was the name of William Holden's character in THE WILD BUNCH. Lloyd Nolan's character Pike would have fit in nicely with the Wild Bunch. Chill Wills who plays Captain "Sidewheel" Jones was a familiar face in Westerns and appeared in several John Wayne films as well as Peckinpah's PAT GARRETT AND BILLY THE KID (1973). Like Cash Adams in SANTIAGO, Sidewheel Jones feels alienated from his country. Having fought for the South in the Civil War and lost, Jones aches to be on the winning side just once. He started smuggling Cubans to the Florida Keys and fell in love with their cause. Jones feels like he's with a winner finally.
SANTIAGO director Gordon Douglas may not be a household name but Douglas had a long and extensive career. He worked with Alan Ladd in SANTIAGO and an earlier film THE MCCONNELL STORY (1955). Douglas's most satisfying decade was in the 1950s when he worked at Warner Brothers, home of CASABLANCA. Ironically, Douglas made two films related to Warner Brother hits for Columbia Pictures. Douglas directed FORTUNES OF CAPTAIN BLOOD (1950) capitalizing on Michael Curtiz's CAPTAIN BLOOD (1935) and ROGUES OF SHERWOOD (also 1950) about the further escapades of Robin Hood made famous in Curtiz's THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD (1938) with Errol Flynn. Douglas's most critically acclaimed film would be THE DETECTIVE (1968) starring Frank Sinatra.
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