The Gay Desperado **** (1936, Ida Lupino, Leo Carrillo, Nino Martini) – Classic Movie Review 13,587  

Rouben Mamoulian’s 1936 musical comedy gangster movie spoof film The Gay Desperado stars Ida Lupino, Leo Carrillo and Metropolitan Opera tenor Nino Martini.

Director Rouben Mamoulian’s 1936 American musical comedy film The Gay Desperado spoofs Hollywood gangster movies, and stars Ida Lupino, Leo Carrillo and Nino Martini. It is produced by Mary Pickford and Jesse Lasky and released by United Artists. It is an eccentric, air-headed entertainment from another era, almost another planet, that actually works.

Music-fan, south of the border cut-throat Pablo Braganza (Leo Carrillo) and his band of ruffians, authentic American mobsters, make off with vaudeville stage singer Chivo (well-known tenor Nino Martini) and abduct a young couple, socialite Jane (Ida Lupino) and wealthy American Bill (James Blakeley), holding them for ransom. Braganza, who has seen Chivo singing live in a cinema, is inspired by the movie he sees and takes up kidnapping to be like the American movie gangsters he admires. Braganza blames Chivo when it all goes wrong, as of course it does, and now Chivo has fallen in love with Jane.

This lively musical comedy gangster movie spoof is really quite as daft as it sounds. Bubbly playing by the game cast and inventive direction by Rouben Mamoulian help to make this zany, high-spirited, blissfully carefree item surprisingly taking. And it is amusing to try a taste of Martini’s singing. He sings with his warm lyric tenor voice ‘The World is Mine Tonight’, ‘Celeste Aida’, ‘Adios Mi Terra’, ‘Cielito Lindo’, ‘Lamento Gitana’, and ‘Estrellita’.

The Gay Desperado is an unlikely success, but it is very, very jolly. It is very nicely lensed by cinematographer Lucien Andriot in the US Southwest. It was partly shot in Tucson, Arizona, showing the old adobe quarter Barrio Libre of 19th Century Tucson and Mission San Xavier del Bac. Filming locations also include Saguaro National Park, Arizona; The Rialto Theatre, Tucson, Arizona; Sonoran Desert, Arizona; and the Tucson Mountains, Arizona.

It is restored by the UCLA Film and Television Archive and the Mary Pickford Foundation, and released on DVD in 2006 by Milestone Pictures.

British actress Ida Lupino (4 February 1918 – 3 August 1995) became the first woman to direct a film noir, The Hitch-Hiker (1953).

Leo Carrillo (August 6, 1880 – September 10, 1961) was most notable as Pancho in the 1950–1956 TV series The Cisco Kid.

Italian operatic tenor Nino Martini (7 August 1902 – 10 December 1976) appeared in several Hollywood movies during the 1930s and 1940s while working as a leading tenor at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City.

The cast are Ida Lupino, Nino Martini, Leo Carrillo, Harold Huber, Mischa Auer, James Blakely, Stanley Fields, Adrian Rosley, Paul Hurst, Alan Garcia, Frank Puglia, and Chris-Pin Martin.

The Gay Desperado is directed by Rouben Mamoulian, runs 85 minutes, is made by Pickford-Lasky Productions, is released by United Artists, is written by Wallace Smith, is shot in black and white by Lucien Andriot, is produced by Mary Pickford and Jesse L lasky, and is scored by Alfred Newman.

Release date: October 2, 1936 (US).

It is also known as Daring Desperadoes (the US reissue title). A-hem, yes, The Gay Desperado, too hot to handle apparently.

© Derek Winnert 2025 – Classic Movie Review 13,587

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