Don Ricardo Returns

Fred Coby was shanghaied so his cousin, Anthony Warde, could claim he was dead and take over the hacienda. Now he is back, and with the aid of his fiancee, Lita Baron, and big Paul Newlan, he'll.... well, he'll delay long enough to bring this up to second feature length.

Given the cast, I didn't expect much from this film version of a Johnston McCulley story, so I wasn't terribly disappointed. Although director Terry Morse has a tin ear, he knows how to frame the shots and edit to keep things moving along. There's also the pleasure of a couple of historical locations on view, including Mission San Fernando Rey. Even so, it never exceeds bog standard.

Perhaps it might have gone better if the print had not been a high-contrast 16mm. one. However, I don't think so.

Producers Releasing Corporation made this very unintentionally humorous "Zorro" ripoff, supposedly based on a story by Johnston McCulley, author of Zorro. If McCulley did write the story he evidently never met a real Mexican let alone a Spaniard. The dialog in this, is spoken by a mostly non Latino cast in typical stilted Americano Spanglish. Every fifth or sixth word is an "authentic" word. The acting, if it can be called that, veers from wildly florid to nonsensical hilarity. The actress playing Dorothea, says her lines like she learned them while working the pickup window at her local Jack In the Box. The main nasty guy, Anthony Warde, screams every line like a commandant of a Nazi death camp. And, Fred Coby, who? is about as authentic a Spanish land owner as PRC could get. Yeah, sure. "Address me as Don Recardo, Dog Swine!" I wonder just what kind of animal that could possibly be? Perhaps, the ultimate question this thing asks might be, if Don Ricardo did indeed return, where did he go to begin with?

When this originally played on the bottom of a double bill many years ago, it is doubtful many in the audience paid much attention to it. Today,only insomniacs, reviewers in training and/or lovers of mindless drivel would watch. As Anthony Warde intoned in so heartfelt a manner, "Be gone, vermin!"

THis is a film with no real flaws, given when it was made, but absolutely no redeeming qualities, either.

I'm watching it now, half-way through, and am going to do my laundry instead.

Imagine one of those really early John Wayne movies, set in Spain and without the Duke. Swords instead of guns.

That's about it.

It will pass the time, and will not insult your intelligence, but nothing more can be said for it.

Pass.