Movie of the Week: Vera Cruz

"And some came alone--the hoboes."
I've been watching this film in bits and pieces this week. So far so good. Some of the accents are obviously fake, and Gary Cooper's a bit wooden, but that's to be expected.
Am I the only one who turns off the color when the technicolor is too garrish? Try it sometime. The people who photographed these movies had lots of experience making black and white films look beautiful, so it should come as no surprise that when you turn the color off things really "pop". Besides, did Maximilian really wear bright reds and greens? It also helps when the film has obviously not been restored. The colors you see on an unrestored dvd are not the colors that are supposed to be there.
Also noteworthy about this film: Burt Lancaster's costume during the caravan scenes is really close to Han Solo's in A New Hope.