battlebeast
Senior HTF Member
Dir
Cast: Warner Baxter, Edmund Lowe, Dorothy Burgess
Oscars won: 1 (Lead Actor (Warner Baxter))
Nominations: 5 (Best Picture, Director, Screenplay, Cinematography)
Warner Baxter plays "The Cisco Kid", a bandit who robs stage coaches for their gold boxes. He never harms the passengers, but if he does rob them he compensates them with gold.
Edmund Lowe is army officer Sergeant Mickey Dunn, tasked with tracking down the Cisco Kid and arresting him for his various crimes and numerous stage coach robberies. Dunn is an inept soldier, twice leeting the Cisco Kidd slip through his fingers.
The Cisco Kid is in love with his girl, Tonia Maria (Dorothy Burgess). Tonia Maria loves The Cisco Kid, but when Mickey Dunn comes snooping around, he falls for her. With the promise of $5,000 and a trip to New York City, Tonia agrees to help Mickey capture the Cisco Kid. But will Mickey actually capture him, or will the Cisco Kid get the upper hand?
In Old Arizona is supposedly the first western talkie and the first shot outdoors. It is evident that this is one of the very first talkie pictures, as there aren't many sound effects and some scenes are indeed quiet, as they would be in a silent film. Mostly, these scenes shot out in the desert, away from close proximity microphones.
For the most part, the acting in this film is terrible. Edmund Lowe is especially bad; his delivery of every line is painful to listen to, and he has a New York accent that does not speak to me of an army officer serving in old west Arizona.
Dorothy Burgess plays a decent Mexican girl, with a good accent, but her acting isn't, to me, up to snuff. There is something in her performance that reminds me of Anna Magnani's terrible, horrible, Oscar winning performance in the Rose Tattoo.
There is a barber in this film, played by Henry Armetta, who is supposed to be Italian. (What is an Italian Barber doing in old Arizona?) Anyway, he delivers all his lines talking like-a this-a. Since when-a do Italians talk-a like-a this-a?
Warner Baxter won the Oscar for his performance here as "The Cisco Kid". He is, indeed, the best actor in this film. He is wonderfully charming, with a great accent, a smooth personality, and smile 12 parsecs wide. He does well playing the Cisco Kid, but even then his performance is only good, not great.
Surprisingly, Fox released In Old Arizona on Blu Ray. The Picture looks good, but could have used restoration work. There are several instances of lines running the length of the frame, and there are many instances of artifacts and dirt and debris. There is contrast flicker in several scenes, too. However, for an 86 year old film, it does look good on Blu Ray. Could it look better? Of Course. But i'm not complaining. Quite the contrary. Thank you so much to Fox for at least giving us this!
The audio sounded pretty good to me, without much of the noise you'd expect from a film of this age.
One can clearly see that this is an early western and, early player in the sound game. Overall, it is a decent western. It has its flaws, yes, but is, a good example of early talking pictures.
Film: 2.5/5
Picture: 3/5
Audio 4/5
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