while cooper career span ninety two feature film and in which he appear a everything from a masked cossack to an italian renaissance explorer and a foreign legionnaire and a baseball great and countless sophisticated romantic adventurer and he be best remember a a western star . garden of evil tell the story of three american adventurer ( cooper and widmark and and mitchell ) who be strand in a mexican fishing village after the ship that be take them to california be put out of commission . all three be head for the californian gold rush . instead and they be now in puerto miguel and approach by a woman in trouble and a spanish speaking american woman and leah fuller ( susan hayward ) and who offer to pay them handsomely if they escort her through hazardous indian territory to rescue her husband who be hurt and trap in a gold mine up there in the hill . the mention of gold make them agree and and together with a mexican macho man name vicente ( victor manuel mendoza ) and begin their long and arduous journey . emotion become tense when leah discovers vicente mark trail and and later and find herself fight off the crude advance of one of the three soldier of fortune . when the group arrive at what the indian call the garden of evil and a sacred ground atop a high mountain where the mine be locate and they find fuller ( hugh marlowe ) still alive and but embitter and with a broken leg . the group trouble grow when they discover they be in danger and practically harass by savage indian . garden of evil be cooper first motion picture in cinemascope . along the way and he prove himself a powerful leader with a commanding performance . susan hayward keep her thought and her affection pretty much of a secret and remain skeptical about her motif . this be her second movie with gary cooper since her appearance in william a. wellman superb and high adventure beau geste and and her third with director hathaway . richard widmark proceed his way of gamble with a neat line in cynical crack while cameron mitchell fail in his unwelcome sexual advance while hugh marlowe use a variety of both conscious and unconscious process to deal with his angry feeling while victor manuel mendoza get intensely angry after be hit while and rita moreno delight the environment with her sweet voice . hathaway be one of the great hollywood veteran still in harness and a versatile director whose western have be a variable in quality a his other film . film on location in mexico and his garden of evil be a beautiful spectacle to behold . the vista be strikingly clear and vivid . the film be a well do character piece and concentrate on the relationship of the character a on the evil influence of gold .