Cactus Caballeros

"Cactus Caballeros" is a comedy(?) starring Harry Gribbon and Joey Faye. It's also made by Educational Pictures...a second, no, third-rate maker of comedy shorts.

While I have never loved Harry Gribbon's comedies, I never hated them. But here in his final picture, the studio paired him with Joey Faye...and Faye is so obnoxious and awful he makes Curly Howard seems like John Gielgud by comparison! He mugs, he screams his lines and he is positively hateful in the movie. I just kept hoping the bandit, Black Pedro, would shoot him.

And, speaking of Black Pedro (an odd American/Spanish name), he's a wanted criminal in Mexico and Harry and Joey just happen to be there on vacation. Somehow, the pair are shamed into finding and capturing the bandit.

Apart from Gribbon's nice singing, there isn't a lot to like about this film. Faye is positively awful and the script lacks laughs.

Harry Gribbon and Joey Faye are two out-of-work movie actors who spot Black Pedro and his gang as he announces, Rumplestiltskin-like, that his alter ego is a bartender. When pretty Estelle Jayne asks nicely, they agree to go after the dread bandito.

It's Harry Gribbon's last movie appearance after a movie career that stretched back to 1915 and Keystone. With 160 appearances, he clearly had his fans, although I am not one of them. He died in 1961, aged 76.

This comedy is one of extreme mugging taking the place of good gags. Gribbon sings a little, and he has a pleasant voice. Faye is short, jittery, and seems more like a radio comic than a screen one.