The Man from Monterey (1933)

It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties. It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.

This John Wayne film from Four Star Westerns has a decidedly Spanish flavor, even more so than the picture that came before, "Somewhere in Sonora", and that one actually took place south of the border. The story has to do with large scale Spanish Grant landholders who are required to register their land with the U.S. government, but in typical fashion, there are holdouts who must be persuaded to comply.John Wayne is Captain John Holmes, who's mission is to get the land owners to fall in line by persuading one of the biggest operators to register. However Don Jose Castanares (Lafe McKee) is reluctant to do so, and his friend Don Pablo Gonzalez (Francis Ford) urges him not to. Some friend, Don Pablo intends to move in on the property by registering it himself if it should fall into public domain by a certain date.This time out, the romantic interest for John Wayne's character is pretty senorita Dolores Castanares (Ruth Hall), daughter of Don Jose. There will be some complications, since the Don intends for his daughter to marry Don Luis (Donald Reed), son of Don Pablo, thereby further guaranteeing an interest in the Castaneras property for the Gonzalez family. For his part, Captain Holmes avails himself of a Mexican sidekick by teaming up with Felipe Guadalupe Constacio Delgado Santa Cruz de la Verranca (Luis Alberni). I included all those names for Felipe because despite all of them, Holmes wound up calling him 'Leo' a couple of times and I couldn't figure out where that came from.Well for an early oater like this there's a lot of goofy stuff going on, whether intentional or not. When Captain Holmes is locked up in a home made dungeon at one point, the bars on the cell are made of wood! A cantina gal named Anita (Nina Quartero), who claims to be engaged to Don Luis, somehow manages to pull a switcheroo during the wedding ceremony and marries Don Luis herself. And in a sword-fight against Don Luis's henchmen, John Wayne proves he's no Errol Flynn by waving his sword back and forth in a manner best designed not to hurt himself.Well look, virtually all of these early oaters were pretty sub-standard by most accounts, even John Wayne's. But the good news for Wayne was that he had only about forty of these types of flicks to go before hitting it big with "Stagecoach" in 1939. Right after completing this stint with Warners' Four Star Westerns unit, he signed up with Paul Malvern's Lone Star Productions where he plied his craft in sixteen more, mostly forgettable Westerns.

OK - This is obviously not a great film by any stretch of the imagination but in its own silly way, it's a tremendously entertaining one. It reminds me of an early film operetta (like the original RIO RITA) except without the songs. The acting and script are, for the most part, pretty bad but that's part of the charm. John Wayne's performances certainly improved in later years but he was at his most handsome here--oozing sex appeal. And Luis Alberni has to be one of the great unsung character actors in Hollywood history. He is genuinely funny in this film---almost equaling his hilarious performance in THE GREAT GARRICK. The production values are surprisingly good for such a low budget effort, the print shown on TCM (which I assume is the same as the Warner DVD)is pristine and the plot moves like lightning. Give it a shot--you might have fun.

The only way I can watch any one of the early B-westerns is by deciding in advance to treat it as high camp, although occasionally a good one pops up. This film is not one of those, but I still had a few chuckles at the goings on, looking for outrageous items. John Wayne is an army captain sent from a fort in Monterey to convince Spanish land owner Lafe McKee to register his claim, else it will become public domain. Land grabbers Francis Ford and his son Donald Reed try to keep McKee from doing so in order to get the land for themselves. The only comic relief in the film came from Luis Alberni, who reads palms, continuously introduces himself as "Felipe Guadelupe Constanche Delgado Santa Cruz" in a flourish, and dresses in drag. Almost everyone else, including Wayne, is so serious it was somewhat funny. I had fun with the good bad guy (Slim Whitaker), the all-too-easy escapes, the stilted dialog, the obligatory love-interest (with Ruth Hall), the peculiar sword fighting, and best of all, Wayne's mind-reading horse, Duke. When Wayne was captured, he tells Alberni (who is outside the locked room where there are no guards) to send Duke to get Whitaker's men. All Alberni does is pat the horse on his rear end and say "go on, Duke."This was set right after California entered the Union when the Spanish land owners distrusted the "gringos," and filmmakers used the theme of land grabbing quite often.

The Man from Monterey has virtually nothing to offer the movie fan, not even the John Wayne completist. Its story is hackneyed, its actor's mostly amateurish and their character's boring. On the plus side, the exterior scenery is pleasant and Luis Alberni gives a comic performance that, while not especially funny, seems positively inspired compared with the rest of the cast. But undoubtedly the movie's greatest asset is that it lasts less than an hour.