Fiesta (1941)

I love this movie so much

Good movie, but best of all time? Hardly . . .

A Masterpiece!

A story that's too fascinating to pass by...

In the late 30s and early 40s, the Hal Roach Studio switched from making comedy shorts to longer-length B-movies. Most were about an hour long, though I have no idea why "Fiesta" is only 45. Regardless, it's a strange Hollywood version of life in the Mexican countryside--one that is very sanitized and full of happy peasants and singing.When the film begins, the big boss-man of the town announces a fiesta because his daughter, Cholita (Ann Ayars) is returning. However, everyone is a bit surprised when she shows up with a fiancé-- especially since poor Jose thought she was his. Soon this fiancé proves to be a real drip so Jose decides to play a trick on him and pretends to be a bandit. Can he possibly win back Cholita or is the woman destined to be married to a haughty jerk?This is a musical with a rather thin plot. The opening number is very nice but I had no idea what they were singing about as it was in Spanish. The second number, however, was awful, as the woman singing lead had a voice high pitched enough to cause dogs to bark and glass to explode! Apart from this, the rest of the songs are okay and the film a mildly entertaining affair if you have very low standards and expectations. Kind of like silly fluff, really.

Ran across this little movie by accident...What caught my eye was the billing of "George Negrete"....I had to watch it to see if that turned out to be Jorge Negrete. It did, and being a huge fan of his singing...well, I had to watch it. He was a really big star in that era in Mexico....I have several of his movies, and as many of his albums I could find. It's a simple movie...minimal plot....very much like an American copy of the style of Mexican movies of that era. A lot of inaccurate mixing of music, dress and accents, but still an amusing comedy with some pretty decent music....and pretty short, so it never really gets boring.

This film probably would be of very, very little interest, were it not shot in colour. At least you can enjoy the magical reds and blues that have never been seen again since Technicolor process was replaced with cheaper and inferior ones. Amazingly enough, even as we are people from the 21st century, and are soon to celebrate Technicolor's one hundredth birthday (it began in 1917 with The Gulf Between, first two-strip Technicolor feature which has not survived), we still manage to be raptured by colour in these early films - especially if these only run for 45 minutes. The film features almost no plot, but at least a dozen songs - not bad ones - and the opportunity to see Anne Ayres, who a few years later became the leading lyrical soprano in the Metropolitain and returned to the screen only in 1951, when he was cast as Antonia in Tales of Hoffmann. Incidentally, she was the only woman in that film who actually lip-synced to her own voice. Her acting style is very sober and unassuming, so you might want to check out her other screen appearances.

This somewhat bland musical comedy isn't anything special, although as light entertainment it is at least watchable. The story revolves around some romantic tangle-ups that happen during a Mexican "Fiesta", but there's not really much depth to the story or the characters. Fernando is mildly interesting, but the rest of the characters are one-dimensional, and for the most part the cast does not succeed in getting much out of them. They wisely kept the running time short, and devoted a lot of it to the musical numbers. Since it was filmed in color, they must have had high hopes for it. And there are parts of it that are entertaining, but overall there's not enough for it to be of more than casual interest.