La Fiesta de Santa Barbara

Fiesta de Santa Barbara, La (1935)

*** (out of 4)

As the titles says, this short shows us the Fiesta of Santa Barbara but the story of this is just hogwash since the real reason to see this short is due to all the famous stars. Warner Baxter, Ida Lupino, the Garland Sisters, Edmund Lowe, Robert Taylor, Harpo Marx, Pete Smith, Buster Keaton, Gary Cooper, Jim Thorpe and countless other stars make cameos here so this cast alone makes this worth watching. Shot in Technicolor and received an Oscar nomination.

If you're interested in seeing this short then Turner Classic Movies shows it quite often.

La Fiesta de Santa Barbara was filmed in 1935 at a former mission in SB, now a restaurant called the EL PASEO. Since it was a mission, they've named it a historical 'treasure' or whatever term they use when it can no longer be torn down. The fun part for me is something I didn't realize until I'd viewed the short probably a dozen times. Much of the dancing and such is performed on a stage that i'VE PLAYED ON A DOZEN TIMES and still looks exactly the same! The El Paseo hired my classic rock band, THE REVOLVERS many times to play on Friday and Sat. nights for the late diners and dancers in the late 90s. What a thrill for me to realize it's the same stage. I heartily agree with another reviewer who says the bright spot is TOBY WING climbing out of a covered wagon. It appears most of the girls are braless (I'm sure a director's choice) and it flatters some of the girls like Toby, but doesn't do much for others like Ida Lupino, who was never what I'd call a cheesecake actress, though in her early days it appears so. The short is funny, in beautiful color and worth catching on TCM occasionally.

By the time this short was filmed the Gumm/Garland Sisters act was all but disbanded as Judy was coming more and more to the spotlight. This was an early MGM experiment with 3 strip technicolor and they pulled out a lot of stops to have stars of MGM in this short. The Garland Sisters perform " La Cucaracha" in Mexican-type garb but they are rather hard to see as they (especially Judy) were filmed almost entirely in profile. You just don't get a good enough look at Judy here. It's fun history trivia, the first appearance by Judy on a "Hollywood" picture, but for a better early performance by Judy in a short, see her with Deanna Durbin in "Every Sunday".

Dozens, if not hundreds of movie players, as well as a ballerina and singer or two, gather in from of the El Paseo Mexican Restaurant in Santa Barbara for another of Louis Llewyn's movies of the type. He had begun filming these in the early 1920s as SCREEN SNAPSHOTS for Columbia. With the coming of sound, he had moved to other studios. Here he is working for for MGM and in Technicolor.

There's an off-handed construction to the movie. It results in usually polished screen comics like Buster Keaton and And Devine not being very funny. But excellence is not the goal here: the point is to show you as many players as possible.

Pete Smith worked for the shorts division of MGM and often narrated how-to films. Well, I cannot stand the guy's narration, as it comes off as very self-satisfied...and annoying. Smith makes jokes, most of which fall completely flat and the notion of less being more never occurred to the guy! Because he narrates this short, it clearly knocks off a few points...especially when he speaks Spanish in a rather dopey and insulting manner.

The film is a self-promotion film, the type MGM often filmed in color during this time. The purpose was to highlight a variety of their stars and thinly veil it in a visit to Santa Barbera for a yearly festival. During the course of the film, you see cameos by Warner Baxter, Harpo Marx, Ted Healy, Judy Garland, Gary Cooper*, Gilbert Roland, Leo Carillo, Robert Taylor, Andy Divine and many more. Several were likely chosen because of their Mexican-American heritage (Carillo and Roland) and no doubt Baxter was chosen since he'd already played The Cisco Kid in several films. The most interesting cameo to me was Ida Lupino, as this was before she became a star and underwent a HUGE makeover. In fact, you can't even recognize it's her until they say her name.

The overall film is extremely colorful (since these shorts were among the few pictures MGM made in full color), festive and plot less. For the average viewer, they'd be a bore but for old time movie fans they are a great opportunity to see many of your favorites.

*I have no idea why Gary Cooper keeps appearing in these films, as he worked mostly for Paramount and Columbia Studios. Maybe he just liked hanging out with the MGM starlets.