Popular reviews

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  Review by B E R T ★½

  Booooring!! I had been putting this one off because I knew I wasn’t gonna like it. Bette was good in her parts, but the movie itself is so not my thing. Mexican history told by Americans? Lol.

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  Review by Will Steele ★★½

  Paul Muni truly was the blueprint for awards-baiting performances in transformative roles as real life historical figures!

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  Review by Raúl Dudas-Lyne ★★

  I mean it's certainly competent, but given how interesting this little episode of history actually is (come on, a Hapsburg just straight up became Emperor of Mexico on a whim), it really should be much better. Having now watched three of these Muni-Dieterle biopics in a row, I can tell you that they are just not for me.

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  Review by 📀 Cammmalot 📀 ★★½

  I do not fight for glory, but for liberty.

  Cowritten by John Huston and featuring a terrific cast I had high hopes for this historical drama, but sadly my hopes were dashed rather quickly. There’s a ton of dry, stilted speeches and the whole thing is a challenge to stick with. Even Bette Davis tends to come off as though she were acting in play, but at least she has a few bright moments.

  The last half picks up a bit, however by then it’s simply a case of too little, too late.

  PERSONS OF INTEREST: Brian Aherne is decent in his award nominated role, and as I’d expect both Claude Rains and John Garfield provide two of the bright spots, but they’re not on screen long enough to give the film a much needed lift.

  
  Distribute this money among your men and tell them to aim for my heart.

  Cinematic Time Capsule - 1939 Ranked

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  Review by Fint ★★★½

  Bette Davis fleeing into the blackness to go insane earns the film extra starrage. Paul Muni's performance is from the Mount Rushmore School of Acting.

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  Review by ClinTarantino ★★★

  Bette Davis November #5 

  A bittersweet history drama in which Bette looks more beauty than ever before. This dark hair anyhow suit her a lot.  The perfomance is like always magnificent and the ending is worth the too long runtime. This shot where the light shines in the room and Bette goes to the window is absolutely amazing.

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  Review by Lowbacca ★★★★

  There's two things that I feel like I'd most want changed here, the first is a stronger presence of Benito Juárez (Paul Muni) in this, because while he is in the title role, the story feels a bit too heavily on Maximilian I (Brian Aherne), to the point that while Maximilian's rationale feels like it's laid out by Maximilian, Juarez's course of action at the end seems like it's laid out by Maximilian as well, rather than from Juarez. This isn't to say that Juarez (Muni) isn't good when he's on screen, just that there isn't enough of it, particularly compared to how much time is spent dealing with Europe. It does force the connections between Juarez and Abraham Lincoln…

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  Review by PUNQ ★★½

  A prestige historic drama from Warner Bros trying to tell an accurate story of the President of Mexico Benito Juraez's battles with the new Emperor Maximilian assigned to Mexico by Napoleon. A lot of work went into telling this story, not to mention an impressive cast.

  
  Sadly Juarez (1939) is a bit of a ham. While they do a respectful job, the acting is stiff theater. Paul Muni as Juarez is a perfect example of that. He wears heavy make-up as usual, and has only one expression, becoming nothing more then a caricature. More rounded was Brian Aherne as the emperor, who becomes the real center of all the political games here. Him and the lady who plays his wife - Bette Davis. And as you can guess, Davis has the most stand-out scenes, giving her character personality compared to the tamed males. She dares to give her performance some color!

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  Review by Ed_W00d ★★½

  Plusieurs choix discutables dans cette tranche d'Histoire du Mexique racontée par des américains.

  Souvent plate, pas toujours pertinent et j'aurais pris davantage de Bette Davis et ses magnifiques cheveux noirs dans un rôle malheureusement accessoire et vraiment pas à la hauteur de son talent. Meh! 🇲🇽

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  Review by Filipe Furtado ★★

  A waste of a terrific cast. Inert script that never finds much of a center beyond Aherne's nobleman (John Huston was among the cuprits). Dieterle animates a few interesting scenes and the high contrast cinemastography is striking. The film discussion of power a non-starter and its attempts to comment on colonialism weak. It is mosstly at its bst when it is about Europeans getting lost in Latin America in mind and physically. Muni's Juarez is misjudged, but everyone else is quite good,

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  Review by Amaia❄️ ★★½

  Drama histórico bastante correcto.

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  Review by Karl Janssen ★★★★½ 2

  Paul Muni, the Daniel Day-Lewis of the 1930s, plays Benito Juárez, the Abraham Lincoln of Mexico. Mexican history is fascinating enough, but screenwriters John Huston, Aeneas McKenzie, and Wolfgang Reinhardt have crafted a Shakespearean tragedy out of the conflict between the Mexican president and the Emperor Maximilian von Hapsburg, played by Brian Aherne as a naive and well-intentioned despot. Director William Dieterle combines a stellar cast, lavish sets, exciting battle scenes, and beautiful noirish cinematography into a period drama that's both historically educational and emotionally stirring.

  Like many historical epics, it may not get an A for accuracy, and it's prone to romanticized theatrics and overacting (Bette Davis is over the top!), but it's ambitiousness is admirable. The sheer amount…