Captain Thunder

It's definitely a period piece, but old does not equal classic. Maybe you can get some pleasure from this film, which has some of the most amazingly bad dialog imaginable. You wonder whether this was intended as a western, or a comedy, or a clown show. At times it seems to veer into a vaudeville routine. You may see certain ideas which evolved into other (much better) westerns, such as Zorro and the Cisco Kid. This was pre-Code (1930), so we have a stagecoach robbery in which the only passengers (two females) have their dresses stolen, leaving them in their slips. This would probably have benefited from being a silent film. Some title cards would have relieved the need to listen to the horrible dialog. Beware!

Back in 1930, the studios thought that audiences wanted operettas and more operettas. They didn't. So, by the end of 1930, movies that were operettas were quickly converted into regular movies, without the singing. Judging by the plot, and the actual existence of a fairly decent musical score (not common in early 30s Warners pictures), this would appear to be one of those quickly converted movies.

Without the songs, the movie is both rather short and horrible. There really is only one good scene: the very pretty Fay Wray makes her entrance in a slip, because the daring bandit Captain Thunder, upon robbing her stagecoach, stole everyone's clothes. (There was some reason given, but I just don't remember it.) Wray, herself, plays a Mexican senorita with the expected amount of hot-bloodedness. Captain Thunder, alas, being middle aged with a receding hairline and advancing second chin, has far less sex appeal than King Kong. Thunder, himself, overacts unamusingly, and is only surpassed in this by the bad actor playing the commandante who never can seem to capture Thunder. Talking scenes go on and on and on and are filled with overwritten attempted comedy, or the sort of dialog that only a Lena Lamont could do justice to. If there were any action scenes, I must have slept through them.

Don't be tempted by the Fay Wray starring role. Avoid this, and save the hour and a half in your life for a second viewing of King Kong.

The few reviews for this film are all over the place--with scores of 2, 4, 7 and 8. Some described it as "dreadful" or "weak" while others called it "richly entertaining"! With such divergent views, I had no idea what to expect. After watching the film, I thought the everyone was being way too kind to this terrible film. Now to a degree you might want to cut the film some slack--after all, it was one of many films in the early days of sound that came up short. Film dialog and acting did improve greatly by just 1932. However, even for 1930, this film was truly craptastic.

Apparently there was some sort of confusion among the actors. While the film is supposed to be set in Mexico, many of the supporting characters speak with what sure sound like Italian accents! It's the early days of sound movies, so perhaps they still didn't have voice coaches to help the actors--and they sure needed it here because even the Mexican accents were often pretty poor. As for the leads, Fay Wray sounded better than I expected but oddly, the pudgy and Hungarian Victor Varconi was Captain Thunder. The end result sounded a bit like Bela Lugosi and Pancho from the Cisco Kid series put together.

As far as Varconi's look, it was pretty interesting. Because the film seemed to be a ripoff of The Cisco Kid films, they tried to make him look like this character. IN OLD ARIZONA, the first sound Cisco Kid film, had just won the Oscar for Best Picture and I think CAPTAIN THUNDER was Warner's attempt to cash in on the series' success. However, dressing Varconi in an outfit EXACTLY like The Cisco Kid's did not produce the same effect. Instead of a tough lover like Warner Baxter or Cesar Romero, he looked more like an accountant dressing up as The Kid for a costume party! I just can't imagine women back in 1930 swooning for this guy! This, combined with the accent, doomed Varconi to a second-rate performance (at best).

By the way, although Varconi was bad, El Commandante Benito Ruiz (Charles Judels, who was Dutch) was by comparison even more dreadful--his acting and accent. My daughter and I tried to figure out WHAT he was supposed to be--she thought German, I thought idiot. Please don't get mad at me for making fun of the bad acting--they're all dead by now (as are their mommies) and I'm not hurting their feelings.

I voted a 4 for this film only because Fay Wray's Spanish accented English was well modulated and consistent. We must remember the times afforded Mexicans virtually no work in films and the rest of this turkey is evidence of the folly of that practice. The film's setting is a Mexican village populated by: the cop from Warners' gangster films, a Swede as El Commandante and an Italian as the lead El Capitan Thunder, the much feared bandito. The film drips with stereotypical south-of-the-borderisms.

My problems with the film go beyond the casting. As the film opens, El Capitan Thunder's gang has kidnapped 5 women that he tries to come on to. An uncomfortable scene that gets worse with Varconi's histrionics. Wildly gesturing, Crosland's camera has not only difficulty keeping him in frame, but the composition is somewhere between medium close-up and close-up, leaving his hands out of frame. His arms flail, why? The effect I found to be jarring and this sequence is long. Seems like the director is trying to recapture Jolson's Jazz Singer magic with this somewhat ad-libbed bombast. Charles Judels as Commandante Ruiz, the police captain, is given a similar scene with the same bad framing. His scene stinks, too.

And I'm not done complaining, yet. While a nice musical underscore was added to the soundtrack, it must have been mixed at the Vitaphone "sea-of-100-turntables" as my print was clear and several layers of pop and crackle were evident. Silent movie titles were frequently used between scenes and the plot is incredible. Worst of all is Varconi's acting. I got the impression he watched Fairbanks in Zorro (a silent), concluded good acting was emoting to the back row and then proceeded to emote past the lobby! You'll wish lightning would strike Captain Thunder.

The positives included Don Alvarodo as Fay's love interest and two dozen men riding backwards on horseback (with hands tied) in the first reel. Best part: the film's only 5800 feet long so you'll only suffer for an hour.

Captain Thunder (1930)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

Early talkie has Victor Varconi playing El Captain Thunder, a Mexican bandit who causes as much trouble as he can but he'll always keep his word. The bandit goes from one form of trouble to the next until he meets and falls for a lady (Fay Wray). I had heard some incredibly bad things about this film but it didn't turn out as bad as I had feared, although this is still one of lesser films I've seen from this era. Director Crosland is best known for THE JAZZ SINGER and other films from that era including DON JUAN and OLD SAN FRANCISCO and I must admit that I've never been a big fan of his work. That trend continues here but to be fair I'm not sure how much blame should go towards him and how much on the screenplay. Even as I write this I can't be certain to what this film was even trying to do. I'm going to guess it was meant as a low-budget version of THE CISCO KID but I'm still not sure if the title character was suppose to be a good or bad guy. Either way he is 100% annoying and it doesn't help that the first time we see him he's pretty much trying to get laughs by harassing women. Wray, playing a Mexican woman, doesn't earn many acting stripes but she did have KING KONG coming in a few years. She certainly looks great, which at least gives the viewer something to do in the film.