Guns of the Revolution (1971)

Sony have recently launched a new free-to-air channel, Sony Movie Classics, designed to exploit their extensive library of 'classic' films.  Some of these used to turn up on other Sony channels such as Movies4Men (now Sony Movies Action), others found a home on Talking Pictures TV.  The bulk of the films shown are black and white Hollywood dramas, film noir and comedies from the forties and fifties, supplemented by colour studio productions from the sixties and seventies.  But their overnight schedules are frequently filled with low budget war movies, English language versions of assorted Italian peplums and historical dramas and spaghetti westerns.  So, the other day I recorded an intriguing sounding spaghetti western from the schedules and settled down to watch it a few days later.  Except, as it turned out, it wasn't really a spaghetti western at all.  While Guns of the Revolution (1971) sounds like an Italian made film, both from its title and its synopsis - in the wake of the Mexican revolution, a general pursues his own war against religion, burning down churches and executing priests - it actually turned out to be a US-Spanish production.  In fact, Guns of the Revolution turns out not to be its title at all - it was a retitling for DVD release of the more prosaic sounding Rain for a Dusty Summer.

Like many true spaghetti westerns, Spain stands in for Mexico and a US actor - Ernest Borgnine - headlines the production.  But there the similarities end.  Instead of an exciting tale of revenge, bullion heists and bank robberies - the usual themes of spaghetti westerns - Guns of the Revolution is actually a 'priest on the run' movie, in the vein of John Ford's The Fugitive. The resemblance to the Ford film, however, is purely thematic.  Instead of Henry Fonda's angst ridden and doubt riddled priest, we have a pious guitar strumming singing holy man, who wanders through the film carrying out secret masses as he evades the authorities.  Which brings us to the film's only novelty, star Padre Humberto, an actual priest, (formerly an actor before taking the cloth, who was given special dispensation to return to acting for this role), playing a priest.  His performance is strictly one dimensional, the character coming over as a holier-than-thou simpleton, ever smiling in the face of adversity thanks to his faith, (or stupidity).  Bizarrely, his appearances seem to be played largely for laughs, with the priest adopting all manner of disguises (including dressing in drag) in order to evade the General's troops.  Of course, many of these troops turn out to be secret Catholics, desperate for a blessing or a couple of hail Marys, in exchange for which they'll turn a blind eye to the priest's activities.

All of this sits awkwardly with scenes of churches being burned and looted and priests and Bishops gunned down.  Even more jarring is the conclusion, which sees the priest finally captured and executed by a firing squad - all the while smiling because he knows that his martyrdom will sow the seeds of the general's eventual downfall.  Clearly intended to be spiritually uplifting, this denouement is merely depressing, underling the futility of the priest's antics in the face of overwhelming state power - there is no indication that his death has had any impact on the general population at all.  The fact that the film fails to properly put over even its crude message about the power of faith underlines the utter ineffectiveness of the film-making.  It is uneven in tone, veering from tragedy to simplistic comedy, with no real plot progression or characterisation of any depth.  It lacks action and excitement, let alone tension.  The atrocious English dubbing - which goes further and further out of synch as the film progesses - really doesn't help.   Ultimately, the film comes over as what it is - a piece of crude religious propaganda which has no regard for history, let alone logic.  It isn't interested in advancing any actual arguments to justify its stance - nobody ever seems able to answer Borgnine's criticism of the church, that it accumulates wealth from its parishioners while leaving them poor and destitute - instead assuming that displays of pious spirituality are sufficient to demonstrate that religion is good, revolutionaries bad. 

But what else are we to expect from a film shot in what was still, in 1971, a fascist dictatorship?  The film's opening credits claim that it is based on fact, that fact, presumably, being that there was a revolution in Mexico.  While conceding that I'm far from an expert on the Mexican revolution, I'm not aware of any sustained attempts by the revolutionary government to suppress religion.  But, of course, Guns of the Revolution isn't really about Mexico in 1917.  If anything, its motivations have more to do with Russia in 1917, where the revolutionaries were Godless communists - for the crux of the film's argument seems to be that revolutions are bad because they invite the masses to question the social, economic and political status quo and suggest that there might be better alternatives.  Obviously something that the authorities in Franco's Spain didn't want to contemplate.  Still, the film isn't entirely bad: Ernest Borgnine contributes a highly entertaining performance, making the supposedly villainous general just about the only rounded character in the film, his dislike for religion coming over as entirely rational.  Finally, Guns of the Revolution provided a mildly bizarre coda to the long directorial career of Hollywood veteran Arthur Lubin, which had veered from Abbot and Costello vehicles to prestige projects like the 1943 colour remake of The Phantom of the Opera, to the 'Francis the talking mule' series.  That his final film should be a piece of pro Catholic propaganda seems apt in view of the fact that he once directed a wartime public health film warning GIs of the risks of catching syphilis.