Romance of the Rio Grande

If you're determined to only watch one Cisco Kid movie, or if it's important for you to start with the best and work your way down, watch Romance of the Rio Grande with Cesar Romero as the famed and lovable bandit. It's the best one by far, and the only one of the series I've seen that doesn't fit in the mold of "one of many" like the others do.

When Cisco and his sidekick Gordito chance upon a stagecoach, they're not the first bandits on the scene. Already bad buys have killed the driver and wounded the passenger riding shotgun. When they turn over the wounded man, they're shocked. It's Cesar Romero! He gets to play a double part in this movie, which is very exciting. Two heads of gorgeous wavy hair, two blinding smiles, two slim figures in tight pants - yes, please! It turns out, the dying man is a visiting grandson to a wealthy land owner in a nearby town. Cisco has the idea to impersonate his lookalike, get some money out of the old man, and leave town with Gordito.

But, when he arrives in town, everything changes. He's treated with love and kindness by his "grandfather", he meets a sweet girl Lynne Roberts, and he has a change of heart. He also has a change of accent, because his lookalike was visiting from Portugal. It's so much fun to see him in a double part, not to mention the trick photography to put both the Cesars in the same frame! I know Warner Baxter won an Academy Award for playing the Cisco Kid, but Cesar's my favorite. Let alone two of him!

The plot from "Romance on the Rio Grande" is utterly ridiculous. It relies on one of the worst and most over-used clichés in film/TV history--the identical strangers myth!

The Cisco Kid (Cesar Romero) and his dopey sidekick, Gordito, come upon a stagecoach with a dead as well as a severely injured man aboard. The injured guy is the spitting image of Cisco and he'll probably soon die! And, when he finds a letter upon this man that tells Cisco he's the grandson of one of the biggest land owners in all of Mexico, Cisco decides to assume the guy's identity and make himself rich. What he doesn't suspect is that someone at the grandfather's hacienda wants to inherit the place himself....and is responsible for the attack on the stagecoach and is not above killing Cisco as well.

In addition to the plot relying on a terrible cliché, it also seems to go on and on and on--and MANY times it looks like it should resolve itself quickly but didn't. The eventual ending to the plotters is decent...but took too long considering how early Cisco sorted all this out. Still, despite the film's many logical flaws, it's fun and worth seeing if you are a fan.

By the way, the baddie is played by Ricardo Cortez. Don't let this guy's Latin good looks and name fool you, he really was born Jacob Krantz and was Jewish! Apparently, Cortez decided to pretend to be Hispanic instead of Jewish because of the idiot antisemitic idiots of the world.

Cisco and Pancho (played by the always amusing Cesar Romero and Chris-Pin Martin), wander into the third movie version of a pretty good novel set among aristocratic Mexicans. Charles G. Clarke's camera work is sharp and beautiful, but while the movie is always interesting, the various elements don't gel perfectly: Cisco and Pancho go about their part of the movie as if it is a comedy, and the rest of the cast is dealing with real problems.

Still, Fox turned out the most sumptuous of B movies during this period, and you can spend your time just looking at the pictures -- the rescuing of the runaway stagecoaches, the agave plants by the edge of the canyons, the musical numbers or the sharply low lit portrait shots. That is a lot of fun in itself.

Cesar Romero does double duty in Romance On The Rio Grande as he plays both the Cisco Kid and the heir to a rich estancia, one of the finest in all Arizona. Of course that's nowhere near the Rio Grande, but apparently even a major studio like 20th Century Fox gave westerns titles that had nothing to do with the story.

The Cisco Kid interrupts a holdup and discovers his lookalike, the heir to a large estancia newly arrived from Spain. The heir is wounded so Cisco goes to the estate to meet his grandfather Pedro DeCordoba and his cousin Ricardo Cortez who wants to gain control by any means necessary. He has a mistress in Patricia Morison equally ambitious. Ironically it's her ambitions that eventually bring about their downfall.

Romero acquits himself well in both roles and his Sancho Panza, Chris-Pin Martin as always gives us a few good laughs.