DKosty123 The fact that this is based on a true story makes this the most outrageous plot ever filmed. Vincent Price plays the biggest con man in US History prior to the 20th Century. The ending of the movie is Hollywoodized but amazingly the rest of the story is true.A man named Reavis who worked in a government land office devised a complicated scheme to forge documents here and in Spain to develop a way to claim the entire state of Arizona as his own with a young girl he develops into a Baroness and marries in order to make his claim legitimate. It is hard to believe this really happened.In this movie the United States is actually put on trial as a Defendant having to prove Reavis does not own Arizona. This movie was made on a low budget with some quality film making people behind the camera and great work by Price. The story cries for a remake although I would be frightened who would be chosen for Price's role. If it were remade with the real true ending of the story, it would be a strong movie. Reavis only problem here is he set his sights too high. At one point the US Government offers him $25 Million Dollars to drop his claim. Considering this is the 1800's Reavis should have taken the offer. Instead he is tripped up by a dogged government expert that finally proves his scheme.Too me there is a real chance for a great remake of the movie.Still having this one with Price carrying the film is a pleasure that is easy to endure.

Richie-67-485852 The idea that someone can come along and make a claim to major land holdings today is far fetched. But, If you go back 100 years or so, when systems in place literally accept any claim filed within reason, it then becomes a fascinating story to be told. Add Vincent Price a very fine actor who is able to hold your attention with ease and you have a good movie on your hands. I like true stories and many a story got its start in some truth. One thing that kept gnawing on me was that if this guy James Rivas who the story is based on didn't get so greedy, he could have done quite well for himself. All he had to do is quit while he was ahead. Then, make a gesture to grant the remaining parcels to the government and forever take a different part in the history of Arizona. I bet it got addicting to see with ease how the plan took root and was honored especially when the big monies started coming in and important people validated the claims with their support. But then, we would have had a different movie too. As the story enfolds and you get pulled in, right around the middle of it you are so glad that it is not over because it is so entertaining. You just have to wonder where it was all going and how it will turn out. Its a snack-able movie with a good drink. Get comfortable and enjoy this one..I have seen it 3 times and it holds well...

OldAle1 Only slightly less impressive than Fuller's debut is this, his second film, with an excellent and slightly restrained Vincent Price as the eponymous title character, another true-life minor figure in the history of the Old West: James Addison Reavis, who in the 1880s concocted a grand schemed to defraud the United States of a large chunk of the then-territory of Arizona through forged documents showing a Spanish land grant handed down for a century and a half to the woman he was to make his bride. Price's conviction and Fuller's straightforward direction somehow make this preposterous tale ring true (many of the basics are correct, though Fuller certainly over-dramatizes the later confrontations between Reavis and the government with its allies the homesteaders that the Baron is trying to steal from). Like I Shot Jesse James this is ultimately a tale of redemption, as the Baron, like Bob Ford, comes to understand that it is not riches and titles that make him attractive to his "Baroness" Sofia (Ellen Drew) but his character. Unlike Bob Ford, he is a man capable of learning and profiting from past mistakes.The narration, from a clubby smoking-room, seems superfluous but fits in with Fuller's "this happened, and you are there" aims. The film does drag a bit in the last third or so, and the great character actress Beulah Bondi is essentially wasted in a small role as Sofia's tutor, but Price carries the film, and the last shot, reminiscent to me of the last moments of 'The Lives of Others' carries a powerful emotional punch. Watched on the fine Eclipse DVD.

MisterWhiplash The Baron of Arizona is another of Samuel Fuller's early "apprentice" type of films, where he was quickly learning his craft and becoming a master of the "B-movie". Following a superb debut and right before his first great film, he had a little downtime to cook up a film that I can't be sure either way how true or how fictional it is (then again, if it's Fuller, as he would claim, it's ALL true in the stuff he bases on the facts as an ex crackerjack reporter). Whichever way to look at it, the Baron of Arizona works up to a point as historical melodrama, but had Fuller done this kind of material later on in his career, it might have been a much better film, maybe more satirical or hard-edged with some comedic overtones. There's more craftiness than is to be had with a pot-boiler like this: Vincent Price playing a con-man who somehow thinks up a fake family heritage to place on a young abandoned girl and then spends years in a Spanish monastery in order to make up and sign some documents that would have him as the rightfully owner of all the land in Arizona.Sounds great, and for the first half or so there's a lot of cool tension as the "Baron" keeps going through his self-fulfilling motions to get what he wants; Price is totally brilliant in the part (until Fuller's script starts to go soft in the last act), with all of his little eye gestures and slight physical and vocal intonations adding just the right notes for a devilish, charming crook like the Baron. The problem comes though in unfolding the trouble the Baron gets into with the government, a nosey man from the department of the interior. There could be a romantic angle to be had in a story like this, but I'm not sure Fuller went about it totally the right way - maybe or maybe not it would be true, there would be more honesty to the tale, in a sense, had the Baron not revealed anything, even at his wife's befuddlement over how so many people could call him a fraud. It is charming, as they fall in love over the course of the damnedest proceedings. But at the same time it also felt a little too sentimental, too much dipping into the easy, predictable route that Fuller often skewers just a little or finds in another angle.Out of the three films that have been recently re-released by the Criterion collection's Eclipse series, this would probably be the least one on the list to recommend. That being said, it's still a pretty decent picture, with some good supporting work, including from the Baronesses's step-father, and of course for Price fans it might serve as something of a small treasure of a performance outside of his usual horror oeuvre.