Fury in Paradise

Set in the late 19th century. When a ruthless robber baron takes away everything they cherish, a rough-and-tumble, idealistic peasant and a sophisticated heiress embark on a quest for justice, vengeance…and a few good heists.

The story of Mexican revolutionary Emiliano Zapata, who led a rebellion against the corrupt, oppressive dictatorship of president Porfirio Díaz in the early 20th century.

Having spent the last 10 years fighting injustice and cruelty, Alejandro de la Vega is now facing his greatest challenge: his loving wife Elena has thrown him out of the house! Elena has filed for divorce and found comfort in the arms of Count Armand, a dashing French aristocrat. But Alejandro knows something she doesn't: Armand is the evil mastermind behind a terrorist plot to destroy the United States. And so, with his marriage and the county's future at stake, it's up to Zorro to save two unions before it's too late.

At the beginning of the 1913 Mexican Revolution, greedy bandit Juan Miranda and idealist John H. Mallory, an Irish Republican Army explosives expert on the lam from the British, fall in with a band of revolutionaries plotting to strike a national bank. When it turns out that the government has been using the bank as a hiding place for illegally detained political prisoners - who are freed by the blast - Miranda becomes a revolutionary hero against his will.

Two jobless Americans convince a prospector to travel to the mountains of Mexico with them in search of gold. But the hostile wilderness, local bandits, and greed all get in the way of their journey.

Dr. Frankenstein's Granddaughter Maria, and her brother assistant Rudolph, moved to the old west because the lightning storms there are more frequent and intense, which allows them to work on the experiments of their grandfather. But the experiments are failing and Rudolph's been secretly killing the corpses afterwards. Meanwhile, the Lopez family leaves the town because of the evil going on there

In Mexico, a mad general is leading his own war against the Church. Priests are rounded up, churches burned down and religion outlawed. The suffering of one pious catholic priest could bring the tide of change however.

When brash Texas border officer Mike Norton wrongfully kills and buries the friend and ranch hand of Pete Perkins, the latter is reminded of a promise he made to bury his friend, Melquiades Estrada, in his Mexican home town. He kidnaps Norton and exhumes Estrada's corpse, and the odd caravan sets out on horseback for Mexico.

Billy Carson, looking for rustlers, kills Bradley in a gun fight. Arrested, the judge finds him innocent but jails him anyway. When the rustling resumes he is released and posing as a Mexican cattle buyer he hopes to trap the culprits.

Narrowly escaping death, outlaw Johnny Madrid goes on the run with the hangman's sensuous daughter Esmeralda by his side.

Around the film hang fascinating questions about border politics, which I’ll touch on in an introduction before the screening. One of Eugene Buck’s motivations for making the film may have been his rough cross-examination during his kidnappers’ first trials, in October 1913, when defense attorneys cast him as a confused and unreliable witness against idealistic freedom fighters. On film he could reproduce the pursuit, the shootouts, his kidnapping, and his friend’s murder just as he had testified. Reenacting the crime on film may have been the best revenge—and a way to honor the sacrifice of Deputy Ortiz, a twenty-year police veteran and, for the era, a rare Mexican American lawman.