I'll tell you why so serious

Excellent but underrated film

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

You must never take what is not yours, devious Vincent Price tells Hus young ward when she brings a book from his library on fraud for him to read to her, making her believe as a young girl that she is the heir to the American territory known as Arizona. While she grows up, he perfects his plan by living among an order of monks who guard priceless local artifacts. Great detail goes into his forgery to prove the claim, gaining their trust until he gets what he needs. Meeting his former ward years later, he charms her into marriage, leading to the take-over and one of the greatest robbery the wild west would ever know.This is one of Vincent Price's greatest non-horror performances, and next to "Dragonwyck" one of his best non-horror villains. Sitting in front of a giant map of Arizona, he has a profile equal to Orson Welles in "Citizen Kane", and as Price continues to gain power, he really becomes Citizen Arizona. Ellen Drew is simply just window dressing as the grown-up version of the naive ward. Excellent production values go into this Q budget drama from the independent Lippert which mainly made cheap crime dramas and westerns. Beaulah Bondi has a tiny role as the nanny Price hires to raise his ward, while Antonio Rosito (" Freaks") has a nice role as the dwarf in the gypsy tribe Price briefly hides out with. He's a villain with a conscience, and after a plea from Drew in an impressive dramatic plea, he finds himself reforming, but at what cost? A gripping climax has Price facing a hangman's rope, and the sweat falling off of Price's brow might have you clutching your seat or sweating a bit as well.

After His Debut Directorial Movie, I Shot Jesse James (1949) and Before one of His most Admired, The Steel Helmet (1951), Sam Fuller made this Awkward, Stuffy, but Enticing "Western" about a Real Life Story that is a Truth Stranger than Fiction.A Forger/Con Artist/Swindler/Thief and all around Bad Dude decides to Spend a Lifetime Concocting a Scheme that will show that His Wife, by way of Land Grant is the Sole Owner of the State of Arizona. Bizarre, to say the Least, this was going to be a Monumental Effort to Pull Off with a Shooting Schedule of 15 Days and an Ultra-Low Budget.But, on board is Writer/Director Sam Fuller, Leading Man Vincent Price (brilliantly cast), and Cinematographer James Wong Howe. The Finished Film is Extraordinary Considering, but the Impact of Viewing it can be Tedious and Demanding.Not quite sure what it is, but the Movie is Heavy Going and those Looking to Find the Fuller Touch may be Disappointed, although there are Flourishes. It is a bit Long and those Usually Fond of this type of Historical Melodrama with a bit of an Edge might Enjoy it as a bit Quirky and at the Same Time, a Generally Rewarding Experience. This is one of those that is not going to be for Everyone. Its Appeal is Limited.

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...

The first six minutes of The Baron of Arizona is a ponderous exposition about Arizona by a small group of dignified actors congratulating each other on Arizona's new statehood. They're in evening clothes, all white haired, all sipping brandy and all puffing on big cigars. Among them is one of the most stilted of voice-over narrators, Reed Hadley. It's a terrible start to what could have been an exceedingly clever movie. After Hadley gives us the secret of James Addison Reavis (Vincent Price), the screenwriter and director Sam Fuller moves us back from 1912 to 1872. Here, we meet Reavis at the start of his great scam to win the territory of Arizona for himself through forged Spanish land grant documents, self-created histories, great forgery skills, the placing of forged documents in a Spanish monastery, and the grooming of a little girl who he convinces her illiterate guardians is the heir to the phony Peralta land grant claim. All this fascinating cleverness, perpetuated with a fine, serious performance by Vincent Price, has the air bled from its balloon by Fuller's tell-us-the-con-early structure and by Hadley's mannered way with a narrative. Fuller and Hadley wind up giving us a voice-over narrative that does little more that tell us what we're already watching. As marred as the movie is, how does James Reavis' story hold up as the tale of a great ambitious con? Fuller brings us into the con by showing us the detailed preparations Reavis took before he made his move. Reavis spent years preparing his con, three of them as a monk in a monastery seeding the old archives with his forged documents. And of course, there is the manipulation of young Sophia, whom he has groomed and trained, and now intends to wed and bed...not because he loves her, but because she will inherit all of Arizona thanks to his plans. Naturally, now as a young woman she loves the guy. He loves the con and the riches to come. It's a nice setup. And when, 46 minutes into the movie, he and his wife show up in Phoenix with all the "documents" to claim title, all hell breaks loose. Our old friend Reed Hadley, now a young investigator from the Department of the Interior, is convinced it all is a scam. He intends to prove it. Does he succeed? Does James Reavis, now calling himself the Baron of Arizona, former clerk in the Sante Fe land office, become in the 1880s one of the wealthiest men in the world? In the year 2009, is the nation of Peralta- Reavis now a close ally of Mexico or of the United States? One thing Sam Fuller shows us: The native Arizonians have become violently restless. I don't want to give way any spoilers so I won't tell you if James Reavis succeeded with his scam and his heirs now control Arizona. Vincent Price and the Reavis scam is what the movie is all about. The scam's potential keeps us interested. Price makes Reavis a complicated and intriguing character who captures our interest and a good deal of our sympathy for his hard work. The movie, however, is flawed by its flashback structure, it's jumbled first 40 minutes, by some standard B movie acting and by Hadley's limitations as an actor and as a really irritating narrator. This was Fuller's second movie, a Poverty Row effort he shot in15 days. If the director had been a guy named Vic Mikle, would anyone care about it now? If you can get past this, Vincent Price's performance will probably make it worthwhile for you. When a role fit his style, his actorly mannerisms and his limitations, Price could be much better than the memory we have of him now as a deliberately hammy, good-natured specialist in cornball horror. Of those movies of his I've seen, I like him a good deal in this one and in Laura.