Ammunition Smuggling on the Mexican Border(1914)

Ammunition Smuggling on the Mexican Border Synopsis

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.

Ammunition Smuggling on the Mexican Border (1914) is a western, documentary and drama film, released on September 29, 1914 with a runtime of 41m. It stars Eugene Buck, Candelario Ortiz, Tom Gardner and Ive White. Viewers rate it 6.0 out of 10 across 1 ratings.