Girl of the Rio

The beautiful Dolores Del Rio and the sometimes amusing Leo Carrillo did not receive particularly good direction in this early talkie from veteran silent filmmaker Herbert Brenon, who appears to have lost his touch here.The acting from both is rather awkward though she does manage a big hysteria scene toward the end. This RKO programmer was shown around 1990 on American Movie Classics but seems to have fallen through the cracks after that. It was a remake of a Norma Shearer silent and was subsequently done yet once more in 1939 as The Girl and the Gambler with Leo Carrillo back again.

Leo Carillo is the best caballero in all of Mexico. It must be true, because he says it about forty times in this movie, and the best caballero in all Mexico wouldn't lie. Usually he says it to Dolores Del Rio, who prefers Norman Foster. So Carillo has Foster framed for murder and offers to help him escape if Miss Del Rio will come stay with him

This sound remake of Norma Talmadge's THE DOVE suffers from the fact that Miss Del Rio, while a contender for most beautiful movie actress ever, has a Mexican accent that makes it difficult to understand her. That makes sense, she she came from Durango. However, Carillo has an accent that's as extreme as hers, and he came from an old California family. A great-grandfather had been provisional governor of California, and his father was the first mayor of Santa Monica. Still, the movies were used to him speaking with a Mexican accent, even by 1932, so that's what he did. Even though the copy of the movie I looked at had a pretty poor soundtrack, which didn't help my appreciation of the story.

And a pretty hokey story it is, too. Still, it's worth it to look at Miss Del Rio.