Juarez

Juarez is a historical drama set in nineteenth-century Mexico, where the republican leader Benito Juárez resists foreign rule. After France takes control of the country, Emperor Napoleon III installs Archduke Maximilian of Austria on a Mexican throne, arranged through a plebiscite Maximilian believes to be genuine. Maximilian and his wife Carlota arrive in Mexico, only to find that much of the population supports Juárez and democratic government. Liberal in his sympathies, Maximilian loses the backing of the conservative landowners, while Juárez organizes resistance against the imperial forces. The film follows the widening conflict between the two men and the collapse of the foreign-backed empire.

William Dieterle directed the film, which came in the middle of an already long career that had included A Midsummer Night's Dream and The Hunchback of Notre Dame earlier that same year, and continued with All That Money Can Buy and Portrait of Jennie afterward. The screenplay was written by John Huston, Æneas MacKenzie and Wolfgang Reinhardt. Paul Muni plays Juárez, with Bette Davis as Carlota, Brian Aherne as Maximilian, Claude Rains as Napoleon III, John Garfield as Porfirio Diaz and Donald Crisp as Bazaine, among a credited cast of forty-nine.

Produced by Warner Bros. Pictures, the film runs 125 minutes. On IMDb it holds a rating of 6.8 from around 2,700 votes, while on TMDB its rating is 6.5 from a much smaller number of votes.