Il re dell'arena

If you loved Cantor's earlier precodes - "Whoopee" and "Palmy Days" - you'll like this one too. In my opinion it's not quite as good as his two prior film efforts, but there are still enough laughs and good musical numbers to make it worth your while. Cantor costars with a very young Robert Young as two college seniors who are expelled on the eve of their graduation. Young goes to Mexico to find the girl he loves, Eddie goes there as a result of being forced to drive a getaway car for a gang of bank robbers and thus being wanted. The two reunite across the border and the fun begins. There are two major complications in the plot - Eddie starts hitting people anytime he hears a whistle, and while in Mexico Eddie has taken on the identity of a great bullfighter in order to avoid arrest for the bank robbery of which he was an unwilling participant.

There are two big Berkeley numbers in the film, the first one being at the very beginning and bearing a great deal of similarity to "By a Waterfall" in Berkeley's film "Footlight Parade" of the following year.

I loved Cantor in this film. In fact, it was my first Eddie Cantor film. His crazy eyes and fast quips kept my attention throughout! Although, this movie is really old and seems only one step above a silent film (judging by all their facial dramatics), it shines as a funny pre-groucho marx sarcastic fun fest. Poor innocent Eddie Cantor, knee-deep in trouble as usual escapes from a girl's dormitory, he is found hiding in and gets caught up with bank robbers. Running with his friend to cross the border to Mexico, Cantor tells the border's cops that he too, is Mexican. Cantor outwits the bad guys by pretending to be a bull-fighter. Trying to escape, he encounters many hilarious characters along the way and actually has to perform in a bull-fight - hilarity ensues. Cantor is always known for his quick thinking and fast talking, so some of his best lines are thrown around in this movie. Also, there are the 1932 Goldwyn Girls including Jane Wyman, a platinum blonde Paulette Goddard, Toby Wing and a sixteen year-old named Betty Grable (not credited). This film is a real must-see!

Eddie Cantor musical where a jittery simpleton is forced to cross the border to Mexico and pretend he is a matador. It's nothing special all told. Some of the jokes are funny, yes, but the whole is thin and I'm sure recycled from previous film and radio work.

What is of some interest, is that Busby Berkeley is here with his crafty engineering. Oh, both of his numbers feel tacky and have nothing to do with anything, which is more proof of zero vision behind this. Yet both numbers impress. Both are in that voluptuous mode he would cultivate in coming years: sexual tease, sparkle and shadowplay, the female body as the fulcrum of a continuously shifting erotic landscape. Eddie in blackface among Busby's radiant troupe feels crude and out of place.

He would be on to 42nd Street and history the next year.

Set in a girls' dormitory that looks more like a palace, it is astonishingly sexy, even by pre-code standards (you won't believe some of the innuendo they got away with); it is also one of the only two big production numbers that Busby Berkeley staged for this movie. Choreographically they're standard stuff compared to what he would do later in his career, but you can still spot glimpses of his genius. As for the rest of the movie, a very slight plot provides the framework for some funny moments (Mexican border standoff, "can you shoot me if I stand over here?", and what may be the first use of slow motion for comic purposes on the screen). **1/2 out of 4.

Forced into Mexico by crooks, a nervous young man impersonates THE KID FROM SPAIN--an imaginary bullfighter -- to keep from getting arrested.

Follies star Eddie Cantor prances his way through this naughty pre-Code comedy. Rolling his eyes and clapping his hands, he uses every trick at his disposal to amuse and he succeeds quite nicely. Cantor never slows down, but, like a mischievous little boy, he seems forever looking for new trouble to explore. His climactic scene in the bullfighting arena remains his best remembered movie moment.

Robert Young seems an odd choice to portray a Mexican college boy, and his problematic courtship of pretty Ruth Hall is totally lacking in excitement, but fortunately it isn't given an inordinate amount of screen time. Polish comic actress Lyda Roberti makes a good foil for Cantor; her amusing face almost matches his own in stealing scenes and her singing & acting are delightfully offbeat.

The dastardly deeds are handled by two of the era's best bad guys--John Miljan as an evil matador and J. Carrol Naish as his grimy sidekick. In addition, Cantor gets to share comedy sequences with three funny fellows--Paul Porcasi as a harried border guard; beefy Noah Beery as Miss Hall's very stern papa & Stanley Fields as a dumb-as-mud killer.

Movie mavens will recognize diminutive Edgar ‘Blueboy' Connor as a bull trainer and a young Betty Grable as one of the chorus girls--both uncredited.

Busby Berkeley directed the movie's musical production numbers, including the opening scene in a girls' dormitory, which seems to serve no other purpose than to expose a good deal of female flesh. The film's conclusion seems a bit abrupt. The villains have not been punished and the Young/Hall romance is still unresolved, but Cantor seems quite happy so why quibble?