The Wonderful Country (film)
The Wonderful Country is a 1959 Technicolor Western film based on Tom Lea's novel of the same name that was produced by Robert Mitchum's DRM Production company in Mexico. Mitchum stars along with Julie London.
Baseball pitcher Satchel Paige plays a soldier in the film, and Lea has a cameo as a barber.
Plot
Mercenary Martin Brady is employed by the Castro brothers, Marcos (Victor Manuel Mendoza), a general, and Cipriano (Pedro Armendáriz), a governor. On a business trip to the United States to arrange the sale of a wagonload of rifles and ammunition, he is delayed when he breaks his leg in an accident.
Treated by Dr Stovall (Charles McGraw), he stays in the Texas town of Puerto with two German Americans, Ben (John Banner) and Ludwig (Max Slaten), to recover. Brady's expertise is sought by the commanders of the local U.S. Army, Major Colton (Gary Merrill) and Texas Rangers Captain Rucker (Albert Dekker), who are planning a mission against hostile Apaches in Mexico.
The Wonderful Country
The Wonderful Country (aka The Wonderful Country, A Novel) is a 1952 Western novel written by Tom Lea. The book is set in Chihuahua and Sonora, Mexico, and Texas and New Mexico in the United States. It was filmed in 1959.
After the financial success of The Brave Bulls, Lea wanted to write a story that he had been thinking about since he was a child, "...write about this borderland and about the people on both sides of the river".
Plot
Martin Brady, at age 14, flees to Mexico from Texas after he kills the man who murdered his father. Now, fourteen years later, in 1880s Mexico, he is called Martin Bredi. He is a hired gun for a rich Mexican rancher and Chihuahuan warlord, Cipriano Castro. Brady starts to feel like he would like to return to Texas. Castro send him north to Puerto, Texas, to guard a load of silver ore, with the intention of smuggling arms.
When he gets to Texas he breaks his leg and has to stay put in the town while he heals. He is approached by the head of the Texas Rangers division in Puerto about joining after the Captain confirms his identity and lets Brady know that he will not be prosecuted for killing his father's murderer. He also is enamored by the ranger captain's daughter, Louisa Rucker.
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