The Cuban Love Song

If you like opera, you may enjoy the performance from Met Opera star Lawrence Tibbett in the musical numbers better than I did, but to me it was overwrought and weirdly out of place. Worse yet though, he's so oafish, lacking screen presence and charm, and I was put off by the pawing and annoying aggressiveness of his overtures to Lupe Vélez - which of course inexplicably win her over.

The whole thing is white male fantasy. His girlfriend back in America is Karen Morley, who tells him she fully expects him to sow his wild oats in the Marines before getting married, and waits patiently for him for years without hearing from him. His cringe-inducing persistence works with the "exotic island girl", and when she wants to get married to him and he balks at that, she just smiles and tells him that's quite all right, that they can just live an idyllic life together on a beach. When he later admits his indiscretion to Morley, she hasn't the slightest care in the world. It's difficult to like this guy or care about him given the treatment he gets, and so even when the story has a couple of touching moments, it's hard to feel anything.

The only reason to watch the film is for Vélez. There are times the script has her doing stereotypical things, and other times when she's a delight. When she's off-screen, the film had little interest for me. Jimmy Durante's character is a waste, and the first 25 minutes are humorless and completely skippable. The film only gets interesting when we see Vélez dancing at a celebration, though it's far too brief. It's a shame that even paired with director W.S. Van Dyke, this wasn't a better vehicle for her.

In the early talkie era, MGM had great faith in the movie star potential of opera star Lawrence Tibbett, starring him in four films. He could be dashing at times but also often looked like Oliver Hardy's kid brother. THE CUBAN LOVE SONG was his final MGM film, ironically it is probably his most successful effort as a film but his character is so remarkably self-centered and oblivious to the pain he causes the women in his life (the movie itself doesn't ponder this fact much either) I suspect this well-made film actually made him unappealing to the all important female audience of the day.

Tibbett stars as a Marine who has a long-suffering girlfriend back home (lovely Karen Morley) for whom he basically has only qualified affection, scarcely bothering to write her while he is away on duty, just a postcard now and then. Stationed in Cuba, he is bewitched by a beautiful local girl (Lupe Velez) but seems to be equally flippant in this second romance if more sexually aggressive toward her. Lupe is bewitched by the man in uniform and is ready to pack up and become his wife but then after a period of idyllic romance Tibbett is called to duty in the war, returning home to America with injuries and loving nursed by old love Morley. Can he get over his "true love", the girl back in Cuba?

Lupe Velez is a vision in this, and while she's given the MGM glamour treatment she's still wholly effective as the little peasant girl who gives her heart to someone who may not deserve it. I'm a Velez fan and this is one of her best film performances, yes we get to see her a bit in her famed spitfire mode but most of the time she is a tender if naive soul in a moving, well nuanced performance. Tibbett is very good too but the movies' "it's a man's world" mentality seems to avoid any criticism of an alleged "good guy" who romances one girl while engaged to another and later who willing abandons the latter in hopes of reuniting with the former. The movies' tragic ending (with a vaguely distasteful "happy" resolution) will surely jar Velez fans given her character ends up in a situation quite similar to the one Lupe found herself in in the early 1940's with even more tragic results. How sad this lovely actress didn't take a page out of her character's pre-code script.

Jimmy Durante and Ernest Torrance costar as Tibbett's rather overage Marine buddies in low-comedy characters. Karen Morley, at the beginning of her MGM career, is quite charming as the faithful American girl who gives her man frankly more than he deserves. Some of the Tibbett/Velez scenes are quite charmingly romantic though not among them is Talbott's extremely aggressive pawing in her bedroom as she tries to fight him off. This bittersweet romance is worth seeing however for Lupe Velez in one of her most effective and certainly most moving roles.

This film reminds me of the odd song "Perhaps Love" which inexplicably paired John Denver with Placido Domingo the opera singer! Yes, "The Cuban Love Song" features an on-screen pairing that just defies common sense--with the classically trained opera singer, Lawrence Tibbett, playing opposite his on-screen pal, Jimmy Durante!! And, to make things even more bizarre, the love interest was the Mexican bombshell, Lupe Valez!! Talk about a strange melange of actors!

The film casts Tibbett as a singing Marine, Terry. While I am sure Tibbett was a lovely person in real life, he sure didn't look like a Marine...more like a society boy with his cute little mustache and prep school manners. I honestly think Hollywood just didn't know what to do with the guy...all they knew was that he had a great voice. Heck, in another film they paired him with Laurel & Hardy, though the film, "The Rogue Song", has been lost. These odd pairings might help explain why Tibbett only appeared in six films and soon returned to the opera stage...only returning for a few television appearances later in life.

As for the film, it's mostly an excuse to hear Tibbett as well as Valez sing...and their voices don't exactly complement each other. Tibbet's voice, even with the primitive sound used in this film, is incredible...and Valez's lacks the power and style of his. They are mismatched when it comes to singing...and their falling in love is equally strange and mismatched. Worth seeing mostly because of its curiosity value. Fortunately, if you need to see it, the print on YouTube is amazingly crisp. Too bad there are no subtitles, however, as sometimes it would have helped in understanding Valez.

The Cuban Love Song is an early talkie with soaring tunes and a touching performance by Lupe Velez, who struggles, mightily, however, to sing the Herbert Stothart music. Most of the vocal duties are carried by Tibbett, whose excellent voice makes up for somewhat wooden acting that was unfortunately typical of the era. As a plot, the film depends on the old Madame Butterfly story (also used in Miss Saigon) of a military man stationed in the developing world (in this case, Cuba) who falls in love with, then loses, a local girl. Viewed today, the story seems tainted with racism, and Velez does occasionally overdo the cuchi-cuchi stuff. But the scene where Tibbett is called away to fight in WWI, and the Velez character tries to put up a bold front, has true emotional impact. Incidentally, the score contains "The Peanut Song," sung in Spanish, later used as a rousing number in the Judy Garland version of "A Star is Born."

A very interesting and quite fun little film featuring Lawrence Tibbett. Yes the story is creaky, the film is too short and some of the dialogue is pretty routine. But against all that in the film's favour we have nice production values, wonderful music full of zest and authentic flavour, a fiery Lupe Velez, a zany Jimmy Durante and Ernest Torrence who provide the amusing comedy nicely and a truly terrific turn from the master baritone himself Lawrence Tibbett both in presence and particularly in singing. The direction is also pretty good, The Cuban Love Song goes at a snappy pace while not slowing down too much in the slower interludes and the stars seem to be having fun. All in all, interesting and worth seeing for Tibbett. 7/10 Bethany Cox