Lucky Cisco Kid

Cesar Romero as the Cisco Kid and Chris-Pin Martin as his bloodthirsty and funny sidekick Gordito find themselves in a town where the Cisco Kid is burning ranches and stealing payrolls, which is a surprise to them. In between making love to showgirl Mary Beth Hughes and helping out widowed Evelyn Venable and her son, Johnny Sheffield on their ranch, they investigate. Dana Andrews is an army sergeant trying to catch the Cisco Kid and Miss Hughes, and Francis Ford is the court clerk when Romero turns the law on its head in search of justice.

This episode in the B series concentrates more on comedy than earlier ones, and is indelibly helped by cinematographer Lucien Andriot's beautiful landscape and two-shot compositions. Andriot was born in Paris -- the on in France, not Texas -- in 1892, and was the cameraman on some French shorts by 1909. By 1914, he was lensing films for the Shuberts. Although he rarely got top assignments, his landscape photography made him a natural for westerns, and he peaked in the early 1930s when he was the cinematographer on THE BIG TRAIL. He continued working until 1962, when he did some TV work and lived until 1979.

The best story about Andriot is that one of the ladies complained that he wasn't making her look as beautiful as he had five years earlier. With Gallic charm, he admitted it, but noted "I am five years older."

As with all the Cisco Kid movies, this one follows the Cisco Kid as he gets a fresh start from his reputation. Cesar Romero and Chris-Pin Martin try to settle in a western town, only to find out that a group of bandits is impersonating the Cisco Kid. They're burning farms, robbing, and killing - and blaming it all on the Cisco Kid.

Cesar tries to clear his name, all while juggling the affections of two women: respectable widow Mary Beth Hughes and saloon entertainer Evelyn Venable. Evelyn is already involved with a cavalry sergeant, Dana Andrews, but she can't resist Cesar's charms. It doesn't hurt that she walks in on him in the bathtub! This movie marks Dana's debut, and boy, can you tell! He's so green, and so nervous, and so awful. Thank goodness he got better in the next couple of years. I hate to say it, but because Dana's performance is so stinky, I'd recommend renting the other Cisco Kid movies to get a better impression of the series. They're pretty cute, and they all follow the same formula so you won't be lost if you watch them out of order.

Cesar Romero stars in this Cisco Kid western as Lucky Cisco Kid and I'm not sure how lucky he was in this film as two women fell for him and he wound up almost as poor as when the film began. Still Romero looked like he was having a lot of fun.

Cisco and companion Gordito played by Cris-Pin Martin as the film opens rob a stagecoach and take the coach as well as the strong box. But Cisco's main enemy, Sergeant Dunn of the US Cavalry is hot on his trail. Romero and Martin ditch the stagecoach and strong box intact and escape, but broke.

Curiously enough there's someone else operating in the area pretending to be the Cisco Kid. A blot on his name Romero will not permit. So they hang around doing a little sleuthing. At the same time they help pretty widow Evelyn Venable hold on to her ranch.

That's the first of two women who have a yen for Romero. Saloon entertainer Mary Beth Hughes thinks Romero quite the dashing caballero. She's also the main squeeze of Sergeant Dunn played here by Dana Andrews making his screen debut. Outlaw Joe Sawyer has a yen for Hughes also, but Romero cuts him down to size in the best scene in the film.

Lucky Cisco Kid which relies a whole lot on Cesar Romero's considerable charm holds up very well for today's audience.

When the show begins, the Cisco Kid is NOT at all pleased because all sorts of robberies are occurring and they are being attributed to him! But he hasn't done any of these and wants to clear his name...as well as collect the reward for capturing the real robbers who are also driving nice people off their land. The trail leads to a town run by a crooked judge and his gang of crooks...but how to prove it?! One thing he CAN prove is that when one of the robberies is occurring, he was in town minding his own business.

In addition to solving the crime, the Kid and Gordito also help a widow and her son who have been grossly overcharged by the general store and he chases a few skirts...as usual. By the way, folks posing as the Kid and committing crimes occurred in several films, such as Cesar Romero's final film in the series, "Ride On Vaquero".