Great visuals, story delivers no surprises

It's funny watching the elements come together in this complicated scam. On one hand, the set-up isn't quite as complex as it seems, but there's an easy sense of fun in every exchange.

it is the rare 'crazy' movie that actually has something to say.

Blistering performances.

Ran across this little movie by accident...What caught my eye was the billing of "George Negrete"....I had to watch it to see if that turned out to be Jorge Negrete. It did, and being a huge fan of his singing...well, I had to watch it. He was a really big star in that era in Mexico....I have several of his movies, and as many of his albums I could find. It's a simple movie...minimal plot....very much like an American copy of the style of Mexican movies of that era. A lot of inaccurate mixing of music, dress and accents, but still an amusing comedy with some pretty decent music....and pretty short, so it never really gets boring.

Remember when W.C. Fields, introducing twins, claimed that one was the world's largest midget, and the other was the world's shortest giant? Well, this film could be called either the cinema's longest short, or the cinema's shortest feature, take your pick. And it's actually pretty good. It's all about a young girl who returns from Mexico City with her new fiancé, only to have her old boyfriend, who has been waiting for her to return, try to scare the pompous man off. Yes, it all happens in less than 50 minutes, and includes several fun musical numbers including the silly but entertaining "What do you do with a jumping bean?", as well as several numbers in Spanish.Throw in some colorful costumes and houses that look like the Munchkinland set from "The Wizard of Oz" and add on some nice color photography (which resembles the MGM Travel Talks series), and you have a pleasant little musical feature. The cast is pretty adequate, but the choreography by LeRoy Prinz is most memorable. Anne Ayres is about as realistic as a Mexican girl as Charleton Heston was as a Mexican man in "A Touch of Evil". The stereotypes of the pleasant peasants, people of such good nature that they have to force themselves to lie in order to go to confession, and then go back to confession to confess that they lied about lying, is rather silly. Some of the comical moments seem a bit forced, but what else can you expect in a Hal Roach comedy? Simply enjoy the music and the color.

Fiesta with a running time of only 43 minutes seems to fall in a never never land of film classification. Not long enough to be a feature film and too long for a short subject. It's strictly an academic question because I doubt this film would have qualified for any awards.It barely has a plot in it and what little it does concerns young Anne Ayars bringing home radio star George Givot for guardian/uncle Antonio Moreno's approval. Givot is certainly not the hero his publicity makes him out to be and Jorge Negrette spend what little time between songs and dances proving it so and winning Ayars.If you watch Fiesta you're not watching it for any story, but to enjoy the musical numbers. Latin American music was at the time making one of its periodic bursts of popularity at the time Fiesta was made and the film is an attempt to cash in on that as well.The numbers are nice, but you can hear and see the same thing watching Desi Arnaz do an occasional number on I Love Lucy.

This film probably would be of very, very little interest, were it not shot in colour. At least you can enjoy the magical reds and blues that have never been seen again since Technicolor process was replaced with cheaper and inferior ones. Amazingly enough, even as we are people from the 21st century, and are soon to celebrate Technicolor's one hundredth birthday (it began in 1917 with The Gulf Between, first two-strip Technicolor feature which has not survived), we still manage to be raptured by colour in these early films - especially if these only run for 45 minutes. The film features almost no plot, but at least a dozen songs - not bad ones - and the opportunity to see Anne Ayres, who a few years later became the leading lyrical soprano in the Metropolitain and returned to the screen only in 1951, when he was cast as Antonia in Tales of Hoffmann. Incidentally, she was the only woman in that film who actually lip-synced to her own voice. Her acting style is very sober and unassuming, so you might want to check out her other screen appearances.