Alma Cigana

Maria Montez is the queen of her gypsy tribe. When Douglas Dumbrille kills the local baron and assumes the dignity of tat rank, he blame it on the anonymous Jon Hall, who seeks refuge with te gypsies. The nominal leader, Leo Carrillo is quite happy to turn Hall over, but he is overruled by Miss Montez, who loves him with a passion only a wild gypsy can understand.

I don't think anyone involved in this movie took it in the least seriously, especially when the big ending comes and it's perpetually befuddled Nigel Bruce who has to work his wobbly way into revealing the secret that Dumbrille and the audience have figured out long before. The story, which veers from Scaramouche to the girl with the mysterious locket which proves her noble birth -- and which looks like the radiator cap off a Cadillac. There are some good stunts, and nice Technicolor images by Howard Green and George Robinson.+ Universal knew they had a winning combination in Hall and Miss Montez, so they allowed director Roy William Neill to turn this into a comedy.

Unpretentious little swashbuckler starring Maria Montez. Nigel Bruce is billed 4th as the High Sheriff but only appears in the final 13 minutes of a feature that runs 1 hour and 15 minutes. He provides some broad but enjoyable buffoonery and is something of a Deus Ex Machina.

No one said it was going to be a special thing, but seeing a screening of this incredibly and unexpectedly entertaining, albeit highly improbable, TECHNICOLOR yarn truly was special. Of the so-called Universal "Tits & Sand" Maria Montez Easterns, GYPSY WILDCAT was a departure in that there was very little, if any, sand. "Lush" is the first thing I would say in describing the effect of seeing this gorgeous, no, breath-taking print (screened in Bay City, MI) in color like I'd never seen before. Maria Montez keeps on most of her clothes, even managing to keep the mid-riff covered for much of the running time, and although she isn't much of an actress, she is gorgeous (no, breath-taking!), and she knows how to handle the stuff they've laid out for her to do. Jon Hall operates at a more active, swashbuckling level, and he seems to be having a much better time than a lot of the others in the cast, although I'm not so sure he carries the action so much as the action carries him along on a sort of Errol Flynn-school bubble. When the camera is not fixed on this couple, the entire film is sort of passed along from character actor to character actor, as if they are passing off the baton. Taking things mighty seriously are Leo Carillo and especially Gale Sondergaard, who literally runs the show for the entire climactic gypsy revolt sequence. Her craftsmanlike control during this portion of the film is as much a special effect from these escapist Montez vehicles as the technicolor, or the star's costume changes for Montez. The money went into the color, and the spectacle went into the colorful costuming (by Vera West, who apparently threw open the circus trunks). For all its technicolor marvel, GYPSY WILDCAT isn't a heavily populated opus, nor are the sets terribly unique to any one genre (or film), in fact, it was a losing effort trying to figure out GYPSY WILDCAT's intended time period. I love how James M. Cain has the screenplay credit, with additional dialogue by Joseph Hoffman. All I want to know is, what screenplay, and what additional dialogue? But no matter, it is a fun picture. Douglas Dumbrille and Peter Coe are also quite serious about their very different assignments, and both leave you wishing they'd had larger roles, especially the unexpectedly dashing Coe, who gets to share a few smoldering shots with Montez before Hall shows up. Best of all, Nigel Bruce sputters forth the ham like company's comin' for dinner, and lucky for us he does! Just when the great Nigel seems to be on the verge of silliness, he grabs that baton and leads the picture into the exciting finish! Go, GYPSY WILDCAT!

It is for me the best Roy William Neill's film besides some Sherlock Holmes movies such as SCARLET CLAW. That said it is a splendid adventure movie in the line of Robin Hood material: medieval, settings, character symphony, overall scheme concerning the topic. Maria Montez is excellent as a gypsy woman and Jon Hall unforgettable too, as usual in his other features. It is colorful, action packed, the intrigue not that surprising, but who would be idiot enough to expect anything different from a Hollywood stuff? I always enjoy all those Maria Montez Jon Hall's films, a forever lost charm. Irrepplaceable.

When you consider what Eisenstein would have done if he'd had the opportunity to work in Technicolor one can only savour the irony that Roy William Neill was able to avail himself of that miracle of technology - and had use of a camera dolly which facilitated some astonishingly mobile camerawork at a time when the Technicolor cameras still weighed a ton - on an obvious piece of hack work.

Universal at that time were investing heavily in Technicolor to dress up their otherwise cheap productions and this film's leading men Jon Hall and Peter Coe are so bland they seem to have been deliberately chosen to divert attention from the fact that their leading lady's sole talent was for photographing well in Technicolor (although she certainly looks impressive in puffed sleeves and red boots), while the least funny element is naturally the comic relief of Leo Carrillo and Curt Bois. But the presence of Gale Sondergaard - who along with a bearded Nigel Bruce was probably enlisted from a Sherlock Holmes picture being filmed on an adjacent soundstage - amply compensates.

The film's most obvious economy was in its failure to commission a decent script in the first place, which brings us to the most curious feature of 'Gypsy Wildcat', the presence of the name of author of hard-boiled thrillers James M. Cain among the writers. Thereby doubtless hangs a tale.