La belle de Mexico

After filming The Jungle Princess and Her Jungle love, the studio wanted to pair Dorothy Lamour and Ray Milland once again. This time, unfortunately, she wears no sarong. The action is moved to Mexico instead and although including several beautiful songs by the so called Irving Berlin of Latin America Agustín Lara and cast Bob Burns and Martha Raye (who take the protagonism out of a couple of too bland and poorly written main characters), the final result is a too slow moving movie that shines only in its musical moments. Famous mexican singer Tito Guízar sings some of the songs -better in Spanish than in English, since the lyrics' translations are not very good either - and choreograper José Fernández staged the dances. Dorothy Lamour also sings several beautiful songs but her screen time -as well as Ray Milland's- is not very long, leaving the film mostly to Burns and Raye routines. Plot is too poorly developed and you have the feeling time runs while nothing really happens. Even the songs' timing is too slow, as if a 45rpm vinyl was played 33 rpm. Maybe in another director's hands it could have been an entertaining movie but it never really takes off and beautiful songs are not enough to sustain it. Originally entitled Ensenada (cove), title was changed to leave any tropical reference apart. Definitely not one of Dorothy's best.