They Came to Cordura is a western that says something meaningful about bravery and heroism. The movie opens with a written narrative that announces just that. The makers of this movie must have worried that the film's message was not obvious enough so it had to announce it's intention ahead of time. Perhaps it was a way of trying to elevate this western to an intellectual height or prepare it's audience for less action than it may expect from a western. Either way, it was not needed.

After a large battle at a Hacienda in Mexico between American cavalry and Pancho Villa, the great Gary Cooper plays an officer, Thorn, assigned to take five soldiers and a woman, Adelaide, back to headquarters in Cordura. Thorn has a secret past of having acted cowardly during a battle. The men he is escorting all did acts of bravery during the fight at the Hacienda and Thorn is nominating all of them for The Congressional Medal of Honor. Adelaide, played by Hayworth still looking great a decade after Gilda, is being charged with aiding the enemy as Pancho Villa was staying at her Hacienda the soldiers attacked.

On the journey to Cordura, Thorn interviews the men about their particular act of bravery and takes notes about them. The men, for different reasons, are not keen on getting the award. After Thorn gives up their horses to some bandits, in order to save themselves, the soldiers become hostile towards him. Before he knows it, he has an outright mutiny on his hands as the men do not believe Thorn can get them across the desert to Cordura alive.

Cooper plays his role with his typical minimalist approach. By the end of the movie you just want Thorn to shoot these idiots and get it over with, but he is busy killing himself trying to save his own soul. The final scene where the men take his notebook and read what he wrote about them should have been, and is supposed to be, this smack of clarity after their journey has descended into madness. The direction and the lack of good acting by these B-actors, lead by Hunter, lessens what is supposed to be the emotional climax to this film.

Only Hayworth shines in this movie as the Hacienda owner with a past of her own. She spends the entire trip pissing off the soldiers by drinking alcohol and smoking cigarettes in front of them while they have neither. She has the best lines in the movie such as, "They're only men, and damn poor specimens at that," The best line and the one that renders the preface meaningless is when she sums up the moral of the movie to Cooper, "One act of cowardice doesn't make a man a coward forever, just as one act of bravery doesn't make a man a hero forever." Earlier in the movie Cooper says to her, "Lady, you're much to logical for a woman."

They Came to Cordura has some missed opportunities for more action scenes, but it's message is unique and relevant.

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Rita Hayworth and Gary Cooper, both in the twilights of their careers, are the stars and the reasons for watching this unusual western, which is set in 1916 right before U.S. involvement in the first world war. I disagree that the supporting cast is all wooden. Van Heflin was a great actor and he gives the rebellious Sgt. Chawk a truly menacing persona. Tab Hunter, I think, gives one of his better performances here. I agree with Eric that Dick York and Michael Callan are both bad actors though.

The gist of the story is the fact that all of the men Thorn is recommending for the Congressional Medal of Honor turn out to be cowardly shits while the heretofore cowardly Thorn turns out to be the true hero. This is the moral that Eric quoted Hayworth's character as summing up. Interesting as that idea seems it's a fairly flimsy premise to base a movie on, especially one that is poorly executed and, as Eric mentioned, one lacking in the action department.

Westerns can be great character studies, (The Searchers springs immediately to mind), but they have to have the shoot-em-up elements we expect. They Came to Cordura doesn't and as such is a disappointment.

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