The Arizona Kid *** (1930, Warner Baxter, Carole Lombard, Theodore von Eltz, Mona Maris) – Classic Movie Review 8284

Carole Lombard and Warner Baxter in The Arizona Kid (1930).

Director Alfred Santell’s 1930 Western sequel The Arizona Kid stars Warner Baxter, who reprises his Oscar-winning role as the Cisco Kid, O Henry’s Robin Hood of the old West, from In Old Arizona (1929). Ralph Block (dialogue, story and screenplay) and Joseph Wright (screenplay) write this lusty antique B-movie-style yarn about finding a secret gold mine in Utah.

The young Carole Lombard enjoys a substantial role as an East Coast vamp called Virginia Hoyt, who appears on the scene with her supposed brother Dick Hoyt (Theodore von Eltz), and soon catches The Arizona Kid’s eye. But it turns out that they are a pair of married villains after The Arizona Kid’s fortune.

It is a routine story, but competently done, and Santell directs a zesty movie at a fast lick, while the Fox Film Corporation studio throws in an A-movie budget to make it look impressive, with outdoors location shooting in Grafton, Rockville Road, and Zion National Park in Utah, and it is still quite a lot of fun for vintage Western fans and more patient general audiences.

Also in the cast are Mona Maris, Hank Mann, Wilfred Lucas, James Gibson, Larry McGrath, Walter P Lewis, Arthur Stone, Jack Herrick and De Sacia Mooers.

Baxter had four goes at his most famous role. The next sequel is 1931’s The Cisco Kid, followed by The Return of the Cisco Kid (1939).

© Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 8284

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