Sous le ciel d'Argentine

The Quintana family (Don Ameche and "Dad"... Henry Stephenson) are shipping horses to be raced and perhaps sold afterward. But for some reason, they must not be sold to the Crawfords (Betty Grable, Charlotte Greenwood). When Glenda (Grable) finds this out, she's all fired up angry. And follows the Quintanas back to Argentine. For some reason. We don't know why Grampa is so mad at the Crawfords, but he keeps throwing them off his property, and they keep acting surprised when it happens. They must be saving the explanation for the grand finale. The always talented and energetic Carmen Miranda does a couple of fun numbers. Although she was born in Portugal, and moved to Brazil. Not Argentine. Anyway. Film directed by Irv Cummings. The picture was nominated for three oscars. It's okay. So much singing. Betty Grable, Don Ameche, and Charlotte Greenwood would meet again, making Moon Over Miami.

Nobody should expect to see Hamlet when watching Down Argentine Way. In fact the plot here is thinner and sillier than most of these fluff musical pieces. Still it's kind a fun.

Don Ameche is up from Argentina in the USA looking to sell some horses and Betty Grable is looking to buy, the horse and Ameche. But once Don hears that Betty's character has the last name of Crawford, no sale, no way, no how.

With mixed motives both looking to get even and an unspoken attraction for Don, Betty and Aunt Charlotte Greenwood take a trip to Buenos Aires for business and all different kinds of pleasure. We also meet Henry Stephenson, Ameche's father, and it does take the whole film to find just what he has against people named Crawford. The prize jumping horse of the Quintana family which is the character names of Ameche and Stephenson who gets turned into a racehorse by the old family trainer, J. Carrol Naish in another of his multitude of ethnic characterizations.

Of course this film never got out of the Hollywood back lot at 20th Century Fox Studios and there are even fewer establishing shots of Buenos Aires than usual. The two best things about Down Argentine Way are the musical score written by Harry Warren and Mack Gordon and the specialties of Carmen Miranda and the Nicholas Brothers.

This was Carmen's American debut and she opens the film with a song that was forever indelibly identified with her, South American Way. The other hit song in the film is the title song of the picture to which everyone in the cast sings and dances at some point.

The notes here say that Don Ameche's voice was dubbed. If so the guy must have been a great soundalike. Probably could fool a voice print identification. Sure sounded like Don Ameche singing from other films I've seen.

Look for a nice performance by Leonid Kinskey a rather inept gigolo with a few other sidelines.

Down Argentine Way was done before Juan Peron took power so the place was viewed favorably. The Roosevelt administration actively encouraged films to be made showing South America in a favorable light like this one with an idea towards making sure they were allies in the World War we were heading for. It's a nice piece of fluff with good songs Betty Grable's famous legs and the one and only Carmen Miranda.

One of the best Betty Grable musicals. As always the plot is unbelievably vacuous but who cares really? When you have the tippy-tappy Grable (doing what she does best), Carmen Miranda (in her American debut), Don Ameche (speaking in a nice Spanish accent), and the Nicholas Brothers (with their usual dance specialties) all in one movie, the implausible plot and meet-cutes are beside the point. The slick lively tunes and dances are more than enough to like this fluffy musical fiesta set in Argentina.

If you liked "Down Argentine Way", see also "Springtime in the Rockies"(1942)

Decent but forgettable Fox musical starring Betty Grable and Don Ameche. Grable is an okay film presence, quite cute but not much of an actress. I generally find Ameche a bore, though I do like him in Midnight. Here he plays an Argentinian nobleman, a son of a famous horse breeder. Grable is an American hippophile who falls in love first with Ameche's horse, and then with the man himself. Her family, unfortunately, has bad history with his father, which forces Ameche to return to South America abruptly. Grable follows. Like many of these little, classic musicals, the plot is negligible. You watch it for the pretty colors, the songs and the dancing. I'd prefer more songs myself, but the ones that are here are fine. Carmen Miranda appears in a nightclub sequence and sings two songs (she also pops up right after the opening credits for no reason in particular - I guess they just wanted to get their money's worth). This was her first appearance in a Hollywood movie. The Nicholas Brothers also appear, and knock it out of the park, as always. The equine plot line is sure to please any horse-lover, even though the plot starts to make less and less sense near the end. It devolves into a "screw it, we're just gonna sing a medley of the film's songs" finale, in which the Nicholas Brothers return (but not Miranda).

Betty finally got lucky in landing the staring role in this one after Alice Faye,the intended star, pleaded exhaustion. Fox had picked up her contract only months before, after Betty had had enough of Paramount not knowing what to do with her. She was doubly lucky in that this was also Carmen Miranda's first Hollywood film. Fox wanted to show off Carmen's colorful costumes, thus filmed the show in Technicolor, an uncommon luxury at this time, even for musicals. Yet, Carmen was not in a position to steal the show from Betty. She was still contracted to a nightclub in NYC, thus her limited screen time had to be filmed in NYC, away from the rest of the cast. No doubt, Fox also wanted to test the response of US audiences to Carmen before featuring her more. Thus, this film served as the launching pad for the celebrity of two of the biggest Hollywood stars of the '40s.

The story, though quite implausible, is important to the film. Two wealthy American or Argentine horse breeding families meet and have their problems as well as attractions. In one scene, Betty unexpectedly sees Argentinian Ricardo Quintana(Don Ameche) in a Buenos Aires nightclub, having been escorted by another man she just met. She drops her date and accompanies Ameche to a more private room, where they talk, not having seen each other since their falling out in the US over the reneged offer to buy Ameche's horse. Betty pretends to forgive Ameche and to warm up to his advances, then suddenly slaps his face and walks out, saying that's what she really came to Argentina to do. One would think that to be the end of their association, but actually it was just a new beginning. She really is attracted to him, but wanted first to get even for the disappointment he had caused her. I thought Betty and Ameche had good chemistry,as they would show again the following year in "Moon over Miami". Ameche is quite handsome and always immaculately dressed, and Betty wears a variety of beautiful outfits. To me, Betty looked and acted like a blond, blue-eyed, singing-dancing version of Olivia DeHaviland. Both had great appeal. Ameche could sing tolerably well in solos and duets with Betty. Unlike most of the Fox musicals of the early '40s involving Betty, Alice Faye or Sonja Henje, the romance between the stars is put on sound footing relatively early, rather than doing a flip flop at the end.

The supporting cast was fine, and included some stars in themselves. Charlotte Greenwood, who would appear in quite a few of Fox's musicals over the next few years, serves as Betty's aunt, and is the featured singer-dancer in a number or two. She was famous for her sidewise high kick. Henry Stephenson made a very credible Argentenian aristocrat, as Ameche's father. Carrol Nash added some down-on-the-farm atmosphere to the mostly aristocratic banter. However, I would have preferred the originally cast Cesar Romero in place of Leonid Kinskey, as the sly gigolo. But, perhaps Cesar would have been too handsome and polished to resist. The Nicholas Brothers, who would appear again in the Fox musicals "Sun Valley Serenade" and "Orchestra Wives", were an added major attraction, with their unique acrobatic dance routines. Several other singing and dancing groups were also featured, taking more of the load off the stars. One, consisting of 6 men and a girl, had the cute name of The Six Hits and a Miss.

The commentary by Sylvia Stoddard and the bio of Betty on my DVD are quite worthwhile. According to the commentary, although Fox was pressured by FDR to make some Latin American-oriented feature films, as part of his effort to keep these countries from joining the Axis in the developing WWII, the effort backfired. The Argentinians were offended by the Hollywood inaccuracies in their Spanish accents and portrayal of the details of the Argentine aristocracy. They also didn't like the inclusion of Carmen, a Brazilian, in a film supposedly set mostly in Argentina. Thus, as in the case of "The King and I", which offended Thais in the portrayal of their past king, the film was banned in the country it was supposed to bring to the American public.