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This is the second of two films Gene Autry made in Cinecolor for Columbia Pictures. I mention this because Cinecolor is a very primitive type of color film....and it was already mostly obsolete by the time Autry made these films. The studio used it simply because it was much cheaper than the true color processes. This is because unlike standard Technicolor, which had been in relatively widespread use since the late 1930s, Cinecolor was a two-color, not a three-color process. This means that to achieve a color effect, they used blends or orange-red and blue-green...and the result isn't true color at all but odd blends. So, yellows, deep reds, violet and a few other colors simply weren't in the spectrum for the two-color processes. In fact, Technicolor once used a two-color process....but replaced it with the three-color because the results were so much better. But, three-color Technicolor eeded expensive lighting and cost much, much more than black & white or Cinecolor. Fortunately for "The Big Sombrero", the Cinecolor is among the best looking I've seen....most films I've seen are much more faded and are either over or under-saturated. And, with "The Big Sombrero", the print seems very brownish....even the greens....and remember...this is a GOOD example of Cinecolor!

When the story begins, Gene is in bad financial straits and is hocking his guitar! Fortunately, he gets the job as foreman on the Big Sombrero Ranch. But he soon realizes there's a problem...Jim Garland, who is about to marry the woman who owns the ranch, is planning on getting rid of all the Mexican-Americans who live there, as he's a greedy jerk. Unfortunately, his intended, Estrellita, is pretty dim and doesn't realize that the man she loves is a weasel! What can Gene do?!

This film has a lot of pretty music...as you'd expect in a Gene Autry film. But the story is also unusual...not just because of the Cinecolor. Gene has no sidekick in this one and the film was in most ways very nice in the way it portrayed Hispanic people. Gene even sang a nice song in Spanish. My only reservation is the young guy who idolizes Gene...he seems to be overplaying his supposed Mexican-American heritage just a bit. He wasn't exactly subtle and tended to overdo his accent. Still, it's a pretty decent film...interesting and a bit more relaxed in style compared to Autry's earlier efforts...perhaps due to Autry getting on a bit in years. But I appreciated this style...and the film seemed like a nice departure from the old formula.

Gene Autry goes south of the border down Mexico way in The Big Sombrero. He recorded that song, but you'll not hear it sung in this film which does have a Latin flavored score for him to sing.

Possibly curiosity more than anything else compels Gene Autry to go south to check out an offer tendered him by Steve Dunne who is the Anglo manager of The Big Sombrero ranch. Dunne is a guy he used to know as a carnival barker with a fast line of patter and little character. Turns out Gene knows his man.

It's in Dunne's plans to woo and wed the owner Elena Verdugo and gain control in order to sell the ranch at a big price. First he has to kick off various tenants before his buyer will fork over the money. Of course Gene as a true cowboy hero isn't standing for that.

There's a bit more plot in this film than in a lot of what Autry was doing for Republic and Columbia Pictures even gave this film some color. They also did not give him a sidekick, one of the few Autry films without one.

I did miss Smiley Burnette and Pat Buttram though.

Gene Autry only made two movies in color and this is one of them, sort of a cheap-looking process known as cine color that actually takes away rather than adds to the total effect of this south of the border western. If Edison Et Al had had the technology to make the first movies in color then possibly we wouldn't know anything about black and white films. But since few movies were made in color until the 1950's because of the expense involved we have grown used to seeing the old Saturday matinée cowboy shoot 'em ups in black and white. Seeing the few that exist in color somehow causes the viewer to lose interest while watching. With a big budget John Ford was able to make color work for the classic "She Wore a Yellow Ribbon," but this was not true for the B films of the day.

There is another problem with this Gene Autry western. Where is the comical sidekick? There is a lame attempt to provide a Mexican stand-in, but he is no Cisco Kid's Pancho or Tim Holt's Chito. I kept looking for a Smiley, a Pat Buttram, or a Pokie. Though Smiley is not present one of his songs is sung by Gene. Smiley, who was one of the most talented songwriters of his day, would sometimes sell his songs to Gene, but Gene would go ahead and put Smiley's name on the music with his, so it would be a 50/50 deal. There is an unintentionally funny opening. Gene is strumming his guitar and singing a love song to what appears to be a man behind a counter smoking a cigarette. No woman is present. It turns out that Gene is showing the guy how good his guitar sounds because he is pawning it for gas money.

There is a good performance by Estrellita Estrada. I don't recall seeing her in other films. I read that she was typecast to playing senorita-type roles and ultimately retired from the cinema.

The action is so-so and overall the film is not as good as many of Gene's earlier ones, still worthwhile for his many fans.

Gene's got Columbia studio backing here, which means a bigger budget than usual. In fact the 80-minutes run-time, including Technicolor and good production values, puts this feature in a B-western category instead of Gene's usual matinée format.

The plot's more complex than usual, with Gene switching sides in a struggle over ranchero land in Mexico. At first, he's unknowingly on the side of the baddies until he finds out the true score. Then too, catch the climax with the guy just driving off (without my telling too much)—very unusual for Gene's movies. So, all in all, you can see Columbia was trying to stretch the matinée formula.

Not much fast shooting, but some good hard riding. Highlights include, an impressive cattle herd, lots of colorful desert scenery, and Gene warbling the catchy 'My Adobe Hacienda'. But most of all, a really spirited Elena Verdugo as Senorita Estelita who pretty much steals the show, unlike most matinée leading ladies. Anyway, it's not among Gene's best, but does have more than its share of compensations.

Gene Autry sells his guitar for gas money. Happily, he runs into Vera Marshe, who he knows from wild west shows as a sharpshooter. Now she's making a living as duenna to Elena Verdugo, and suggests he get the job running Miss Verdugo's ranch in Mexico, since her business manager (and frequent marriage-proposer) is Stephen Dunne, also formerly of wild west shows. Dunne hires Autry with a six-month contract, but there's something oily about him. He's ordering families off the ranch for non-payment of rent, despite the fact that they haven't been able to sell their cattle into the US for some time; now that the market is open again, they can pay off. But Dunne wants them gone, so he can engineer the sale of the ranch to Gene Roth and pick up a nice commission. Gene sizes up the situation quickly and settles on the tenants' side.

It's one of two Autry movies in color, but the print I looked at had something horrid happen to the Cinecolor process, so all the blues turned the color of milk. The story, while pretty good, and with some nice humor in the relationship of Miss Verdugo and her godfather, seems to wander, going nowhere until the time comes for the plot threads to be tied up. The songs are okay, but not especially memorable. While color was a definite bonus here -- assuming the theatrical prints were better -- the writing would have to be better to make the investment pay. Gene would go back to black and white, and stay there.