Garden of Evil

Garden of Evil
Directed byHenry Hathaway
Screenplay byFrank Fenton
Story byFred Freiberger
William Tunberg
Produced byCharles Brackett
StarringGary Cooper
Susan Hayward
Richard Widmark
CinematographyMilton R. Krasner
Jorge Stahl, Jr.
Edited byJames B. Clark
Music byBernard Herrmann
Color processTechnicolor
Production
company
20th Century Fox
Distributed by20th Century Fox
Release date
  • July 9, 1954 (1954-07-09)
Running time
100 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$2,070,000[1] or $2.5 million[2]
Box office$3.1 million (US rentals)[3] or $3.4 million[2]

Garden of Evil is a 1954 American CinemaScope Western film directed by Henry Hathaway, about three somewhat disreputable 19th-century soldiers of fortune, played by Gary Cooper as an ex-lawman, Richard Widmark as a gambler, and Cameron Mitchell as a bounty hunter, who, along with Vicente, played by Víctor Manuel Mendoza, are randomly hired by a woman portrayed by Susan Hayward, to rescue her husband (Hugh Marlowe). Rita Moreno appears at the beginning of the film as a Mexican cantina singer/dancer. It was the first outdoor picture photographed in the new CinemaScope anamorphic widescreen process and director Hathaway took special pains to use the stunning vistas of the Mexican locations to show off the new screen dimensions to best effect.

  1. ^ Solomon, Aubrey. Twentieth Century Fox: A Corporate and Financial History. The Scarecrow Filmmakers Series. Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press, 1989. ISBN 978-0-8108-4244-1. p249
  2. ^ a b "20th Blessing". Variety. November 9, 1955. p. 20.
  3. ^ "The Top Box-Office Hits of 1954", Variety Weekly, January 5, 1955