La collera di Dio

I saw The Wrath of God as a sneak preview in 1972 when I was 14. I saw it with my dad at the now long gone Sunny Isle Theater in North Miami, Florida. I recall the film was action packed and concerned a South American Revolution around the early to mid 1900s. These type of films were popular in the 1960s and early 1970s: 100 Rifles, The Wild Bunch, The Professionals, Villa Rides, and the Wrath of God. Rita Hayworth looking surprising young and attractive. I believe she was 52, but looked about 40. Her part was small, and she looked extremely unhappy. Turned out to be her last film. Nothing really great here. Only fair, but lots of action. Only stands out as Rita Hayworth's final curtain call.

The Wrath Of God is a kind of parody on the films Robert Mitchum was so routinely cast in back in the Forties and Fifties and even later on which he was doing know for a good paycheck. It's funny in spots, but ultimately doesn't quite come off.

Humphrey Bogart's The Left Hand Of God is the closest comparison one can make to this film. Bogart is also an adventurer in priestly disguise who aids a Chinese village during Kuomintang China days.

The Wrath Of God has Mitchum as a priest who is also a conman and handy with a variety of weapons, particularly the Thompson submachine gun. He, Victor Buono and Kenneth Hutcherson form an alliance of convenience which wasn't easy with Buono and Hutcherson refighting all the recent troubles in Ireland.

They get impressed into service by a strutting Colonel played by John Colicos whose behavior and that of his troops doesn't inspire a whole lot of confidence that Colicos's bunch are the good guys. Colicos has to get inside the stronghold of a wealthy Don played by a young Frank Langella in one of his earliest films. Colicos is no prize, but Langella is positively psychotic, especially on the subject of religion. In his domain he's forbade the Catholic Church and any of its priests from any practice of the religion. He's got his reasons, but they're kind of out in left field to say the least. Mitchum's convincing guise a priest might just draw him out.

The Wrath Of God marked the final screen appearance of Rita Hayworth who got the film as an act of charity by Mitchum according to the Lee Server biography of Mitchum. Hayworth was having financial problems and was drinking heavily. Little did anyone realize that the reason for her bad behavior which occasionally got reported in the press back then was the onset of Alzheimer's Disease. The woman was drinking literally because she was losing her mind. She caused a lot of production delays. A truly sad end to the woman who in my humble opinion was the greatest screen sex goddess of all.

What delays Rita Hayworth didn't cause Ken Hutcherson did with an accident which injured his arm and the insurance had to pay big bucks. The film was delayed by several weeks while Hutcherson healed and as Server put in his book, the insurance company wound up owning the film.

They didn't wind up owning Gone With The Wind.

To some extent Ralph Nelson's "The Wrath of God" spoofs westerns, but like Nelson's "Lilies of the Field," under the comedy is, I think, a deeply felt belief in divine grace. Both movies focus on unlikely human materials having a vocation they fail to recognize and consciously resist. Herein, Robert Mitchum plays a con man masquerading as a priest and a Catholic martyr in the tradition of Thomas à Becket or Thomas More mistaken by many as a hedonist.

In her last screen performance Rita Hayworth has preternaturally red hair (fire-engine red, not a color of any natural human hair), few lines, and is required to look devout (which she manages to do). As her flamboyantly traumatized and traumatizing son, Frank Langella gets to chew up the scenery, which he does with great relish (before "Dracula," after his memorable film debut in "Diary of a Mad Housewife" and Mel Brooks's adaptation of "The Twelve Chairs"). Ken Hutchinson does fine as the token normal guy who is embroiled in others' plots, including the romantic subplot that involves him with a mute Indian maiden (Paula Pritchett). In a Sidney Greenstreet-kind of role as a corpulent and corrupt gun-runner Victor Buono is suitably droll. Still, it is Mitchum's movie, and he is as compelling when he takes his priestly role seriously as when he plays the usual disengaged but competent existentialist who expects nothin' from nobody. <bt><br> A motley gang of foreign mercenaries getting involved in the confusions of the long-running Mexican revolution and taking a side against their financial interest recurred in a number of late-1960s and early-70s movies, including "The Wild Bunch", "The Professionals", and "A Fistful of Dynamite." The latter two use considerable humor within the genre of expatriates taking sides (which in Mexican settings of different eras includes "Vera Cruz", "Old Gringo", and "Bring Me the Head, of Alfredo García").

A tongue in cheek ,very funny "western" -although it features plenty of death-),not as tragic as Nelson's more famous "soldier blue" .A good chemistry between the three mates ,even though Mitchum is obviously the stand out.I did not go to confession for years ,but if I had a "priest " like him,well....His words are often Bunuelesque ,recalling "Nazarin"(1958) when he talks about the stranglehold the wealthy ones have on religion.In spite of the presence of a positive catholic character (Rita Hayworth's last part,her next-to-last was a strange French movie where she played the role (sadly premonitory)of a woman losing her mind "La Route De Salina" ),it is a very unfriendly look at the catholic Church,not exactly a Hollywoodian politically correct one.

The scene of the execution when the screen becomes completely black ("and it has not taken three days !say one of the condemned persons)is memorable ;and the title is thoroughly justified in the last scene when God's hand punishes the heathen .

It's been my experience that many times,reviewers of this strange gem have been puzzled or turned off by the strange plot and readings that the players have provided.This is NOT just a standard western,with rebels trying to overthrow a tyrant.This is a parody of every flm cliche of that particular vintage.Mitchum is doing a burlesque of Bogart or any other reluctant hero fighting a tyrany.Langella is doing Jay Robinson's psychotic Caligula from "The Robe"or"demetrius and the Gladiators".Hayworth is every suffering mother,Colicos is every sly villain,and buono is having the time of his life and career as a virtuoso impersonator of Sydney Greenstreet.Get this film,make lots of popcorn,plenty of beverages,and enjoy.