bkoganbing
A forgotten B western for a fly by night poverty row outfit Rebellion is only worth remembering for being a film that had a future movie legend in the female lead. Rita Cansino later Rita Hayworth is on a mission to President Zachary Taylor to get justice for her people, the former Mexican citizens who are being exploited by ruthless Americans come over into California. Hayworth's brother Duncan Renaldo the future Cisco Kid plays the brother and now 'outlaw' leader.Taylor is as good as his word, he sends a soldier, his personal military aide Tom Keene to investigate and settle the issues. I'd say Keene went way beyond his orders with what you see here. But he's a cowboy hero and gets the job done.It's a pretty shoddy B western that if not for Rita Hayworth would be obscure and forgotten.
JohnHowardReid
Mainly of interest for Rita Hayworth fans, although she's not given much chance in this one to show us what she's got in the way of both histrionic talent and body language. In fact, she displays so little of her charismatic charms that it's nondescript Tom Keene who takes away all that's left of the viewer's attention when the comic-relief clowns are not hogging up the screen. Director Lynn Shores who was under contract to Crescent Pictures at this time, and was later to helm that superb Charlie Chan installment, Charlie Chan at the Wax Museum (1940), seems to have handled this assignment in his sleep. Admittedly, on paper Shores was a very good pick because he did have a reputation for handling both interior dialogue and location action very ably. And it's true that you could possibly blame the writer rather than the director for this movie's sluggish pace and its somewhat tiresome, we've-seen-it-all-before plot which we already know is going to finish up with vindication for the goodies and death or prison for California's bad guys. Available on a very good Alpha DVD.
John W Chance
Under her real name, Rita Cansino (later 'Hayworth') had just finished 12 movies as a bit player and a dancer. Here she now has a major co-starring part (with Western actor Tom Keene) as the female lead. This movie has also been released as 'Lady From 'Frisco,' which gives you a sense of the size and importance of her role in it.Taking place in 1850, the film's theme is the failure of the United States Government to observe the Guadalupe-Hidalgo treaty, allowing evil 'gringos' to steal the herds, lands and rancheros of the native California Mexicans. We see Paula Castillo (Rita) pleading with President Zachery Taylor to bring an end to the lawlessness, enforce the treaty and restore land to her people. The overly beaming soldier Captain John Carroll (Tom Keene), who looks like he's about to burst his buttons when he sees her, is then dispatched to California to clean it up.Rita gives several more stirring speeches (in a fake sounding Spanish accent), particularly towards the end when she encourages Mexicans and 'Americans' to unite in seeking Califonia's admission to the Union. Lest we get too carried away with the script and plot, it was written by John T. Neville who also gave us 'The Devil Bat' (1940) and 'The Flying Serpent' (1946), two more 'Poverty Row' classics (?). He is credited, however, as being one of the 'writers' on W. C. Field's amazing non-sequiter masterpiece 'Never Give a Sucker an Even Break' (1941). The plot weakness is that Carroll has no army, and deals with the rebellious take over of California in an almost preposterous way-- he strong arms the evil judge and bailiff; he simply orders the false landowners out of town, and uses the Ricardo Castillo (Duncan Renaldo) band of renegade Mexicanos to finally attack the stronghold of the evil villain Harris (William Royle). This, and Tom Keene's lack of cowboy athleticism weaken the film considerably.Meanwhile, we are fortunate to see Rita in a major role before she goes back to bit parts as a dancer and minor love interest in the Three Mesquiters' 'Hit the Saddle' (1937) and Tex Ritter's 'Trouble in Texas' (1937) among many others to come. We can really see her face here before the 'painful' electrolysis (the what? -- it means killing of the hair roots by electrical current) that changed her looks forever. You look at 'Gilda' (1946) and wonder what the fuss was all about-- it must have been her hair and the way she flipped, fluffed, tousled, swung, combed and flounced it during the movie. Her dancing in 'Gilda' is either the result of poor choreography or a demonstration of why she left a a dancing career for films: she was still doing the same turns from 'Trouble in Texas'. Check her out in 'The Strawbery Blonde' (1941), 'Gilda' (1946), Orson Welle's divorce love song to her 'The Lady From Shanghai' (1947), and her famous fifties films 'Miss Sadie Thompson' (1953), 'Pal Joey' (1957) and 'Seperate Tables' (1958).Tom Keene looks good and can be really strongly stern. Unfortunately, we don't get any of 'two-fisted' action, gun play, and stunts we expect from cowboy heroes. I guess we were too spoiled by John Wayne, Yakima Canutt (often also doubling for Gene Autry), Ken Maynard and Tex Ritter. Tom would probably be better in straight dramatic pictures, though he was in many Westerns. (Was 'Freighters of Destiny' (1931) his best film?) We can see him in the controversial 'Our Daily Bread' (1934), as Richard Powers in 'Dick Tracy Meets Gruesome' (1947) and 'Red Planet Mars' (1952), and in his ultimate role, Col. Tom Edwards in one of the two Ed Woods' masterworks, 'Plan Nine From Outer Space' (1959). (The other one, of course, is 'Glen or Glenda' (1953).)Besides Rita's leading role, another unusual aspect of the Western is Duncan Renaldo playing her brother, giving a lot of his dialog in Spanish. Too bad he gets killed during the movie. We also see a wide variety of sombreros, a charge of racism lodged against Harris and his gang, and when Paula is being held prisoner by Harris's men, one says, "You don't need to worry about us, lady, our weakness is liquor," and a final montage of famous western cities and ports including San Diego, Ogden, Tucson, Oakland, Los Angeles, San Francisco, which ends with a shot of the recently completed Boulder Dam. The non-realistic working out of the plot and the weak cowboy athleticism mean that despite Rita Hayworth's starring role, the film merits only a 4.
