History can be fun, but not so much this time

I enjoy historical movies, but sometimes half the fun -- okay, maybe more than half -- is picking out anachronisms, unsupported legend and just plain errors. The misnamed "Juarez" is about Maximilian von Hapsburg and his three years as emperor of Mexico, placed on the made-up throne after a rigged referendum. He was shot in 1867 after the French army, which had brought him to Mexico in the first place, abandoned him in the face of threats of intervention from the United States.

I had doubts about the featuring of the song "La Paloma," but Spanish composer Sebastián Yradier died in 1865, so it's entirely plausible it was Charlotte's favorite tune.

The makers of "Juarez" took special care with accuracy and authenticity, and for 1939 they did a pretty good job. What doesn't wash is some of the characterizations and dialogue. For instance, John Garfield plays Porfirio Diaz as a fine soldier and leader, which he was. The Battle of Puebla on Cinco de Mayo in 1862 is one of his gifts to history and to gringo party animals. But the sweetie-pie tone Garfield takes chafes in the face of Diaz' eventual 40-year dictatorship.

There's at least one clear anachronism, if only a few months worth. Toward the beginning of the movie Napoleon III of France, played by Claude Rains (in a rare, for him, bit of overacting), receives word of the defeat of the Confederate Army at Gettysburg, its relevance being France would have to back off its ambitions in Mexico if the North won the Civil War. Later in the scene he mocks democracy. "Rule of the mob, by the mob, for the mob," an obvious allusion to Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. But that speech wasn't delivered until Nov. 19, 1863, four and a half months after the battle. Even though news was carried in ships, the craft of the time whittled transatlantic communication down to around two weeks. So Napoleon couldn't possibly have known Lincoln's tripartite description of democracy..

The scenes with Paul Muni as a barely alive Juarez seem just too long. Perhaps he was demanding he be allowed to show off the great makeup job.

Briane Aherne is magnificent as Maximilian, and has all the best lines.