Welcome to 1930. Talkies are one year old and studios are continuing to experiment madly with all kinds of plots, all kinds of screenplays, and all levels of acting competence. In this film we get broad elements of slapstick and mushy love scenes, and, because it's pre-Code, a little skin deliciously displayed (Fay Wray being happy to oblige). You'll see early on that this film turns out to be way too rough-hewn, and its slapdash construction will not be successful: audiences don't want to watch a mess. The only person really trying to make it all work is Ms. Wray; she practically owns the screen every time she appears, even with her awful accent. If you find yourself attracted to her work -- as I have become -- this flick's worth a quick watch.
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barnesgene4 August 2014
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arthursward20 October 2002I 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. -
ksf-230 April 2023Fay wray, a couple years before "king kong"! When the local bandit robs and terrorizes a small town, ynez tries to help capture him. But she falls for him, and chickens out at the last minute. Co-stars victor varconi, bert roach. It's quite dated, and they sure don't show much respect for the mexican culture. But of course, it must be taken in context for its time. I guess. Clearly, the actors weren't sure how to speak, pretending to use accents. Entertaining enough. Some twists and turns. This film only has 180 ratings on imdb, so turner classics must rarely show this one. Directed by alan crosland, who died at 41, from injuries in a car wreck. And natalie moorhead (plays bonita, a pretty good role ) was married to crosland for five years. It's okay. The script wasn't great, and crosland had been doing silents for so long, i guess something didn't carry over into the talkies.
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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. -
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. -
Michael_Elliott13 May 2009Captain 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. -
fredit-430041 October 2022It'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!
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mark.waltz3 November 2023Early talkies are a hit or miss, and this is definitely the later, with outlandishly horrendous Spanish accents by the mostly Caucasian cast. The story focuses on bandit Victor Varconi (hysterically mixing Spanish with a Hungarian twang) and his romance with spitfire Fay Wray who sneers practically every line. Varconi is being sought out by the Dutch Charles Judels (as Commandante Ruiz) who bellows every line and practically swallows the entire set.
In spite of the well done filming (non-stop action and a lavish set), this is hysterically bad, and deserves an extra star just for its audaciousness. Supporting favorites Bert Roach and Natalie Moorehead manage to avoid criticism by basically not being on screen too much, and the audience was spared more absurdity by the songs being eliminated. A definite curiosity, but not one trip south of the border I want to revisit. -
JohnHowardReid9 July 2008A delightful museum piece with lots of uproariously phony Spanish talk and inane chatter, accompanied by an appropriately wheezy music score. All the acting is marvelously hammy. Mind you, Mr Varconi does tend to out-stay his limited welcome to the point where he starts to get on your nerves, but no-one will complain about Fay Wray. Admittedly, she can't act for toffee, but she is a fine figure of a young lady, and she does makes a gorgeous entrance in her slip.
And would believe this tosh is directed by the great silent metteur en scene, Alan Crosland? He gets few opportunities here for pictorial scope, though admittedly there are some nice visual touches. As for the story, it's all that you might expect from an imitation Cisco Kid, with a plot twist that would certainly do credit to O. Henry himself.
Nonetheless, Crosland's overall contribution does not exactly shine. He had not lost his touch, but was doubtless overawed by the technical requirements of early sound recording. One suspects that this film was actually made before and not after "Viennese Nights", which is a much more accomplished (and far more expensive and expansive) production. -
pml26-128 April 2009This film is not that bad. The previous reviewers have been very hard on this film. I will admit that the comic relief Commandant is very hard. Honestly he should have been deleted with the songs! Fay Wray is wonderful in this film, she always is, did she ever make a bad film, or at least one where it isn't worth seeing her? She was so beautiful. Victor Varconi, in spite of his age, did a wonderful job in this film. He had personality, and a role that actually allowed him to express himself unlike most of his other parts in films when he was mainly wooden (scripts to blame, not him). Don Alvarado, as Fay Wray's fiancé, has a larger role than his billing suggests. These three characters are the only good ones, though, and I will admit that from now on, I recorded it off of TCM, I will be forwarding to the parts with these three actors because the rest of the film is either very boring or very bad, luckily their most of the movie! I may revise this review later.
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I can't understand for the life of me what people are thinking when they criticize this movie for the xeriff's jokes, the songs or the accent. First of all, IT'S A COMEDY. It's not drama, adventure or whatever genre IMDB claims it to be. It's a sweet, lighthearted romantic comedy about a mexican thief who's actually a nice guy. The screenplay is not intended to be anything else.
Second of all, it's a movie from 1930. An early talkie. Directors were pretty much still learning how to work with music and accents. Overall it works out fine. We all know - as much as the audience in 1930 - that Victor Varconi and Fay Wray were not mexicans. What matters is that Fay Wray is drop dead gorgeous! She's talented and stunning. Every one of her scenes, as the cute young girl that dazzles the good bad guy and ends up with a bit of a crush on him, is a delight.
Varconi does a very good job in a role that would have been perfect for Douglas Fairbanks, ten years earlier. One of the reviewers said Varconi "in spite of his age, did a wonderful job in this film". Once again, I don't understand it. What the hell is wrong with him or his age?? The man was thirty-nine!! The perfect age for any role in a romantic comedy!
Forget these reviews. It's a sweet little comedy with one of the most beautiful actresses of all time.