The Kid from Spain

In the 1930s Eddie Cantor made a series of pleasant, sometimes sexy, consistently entertaining, fast paced comedies. This is, in my opinion, one of the better ones. The songs are wonderful, the gags are funny, the 1930's atmosphere is thick, and Eddie himself is so energetic throughout he seems to float.

It's a wonderful picture. Very recommended for 1930's film buffs and musical comedy enthusiasts.

I like Eddie Cantor movies. This is an early talkie and one of his best. It has two superb dance sequences from Busby Berkeley.

I'd have rated it an 8 but for the number done in black-face. Yes, I know that was fairly standard at the time. It grates today, though. The whole thing is fun. It's improbable but that can be the key to the charm of a Cantor movie.

Nevertheless, the highlight for me was his leading lady. I'd heard the name Lyda Roberti. Probably I've seen her before, too. But I was knocked out by her delightful comic performance. Here was a pretty woman, svelte and attractive, who was a topnotch comic. She presaged such greats as Joan Davis and Judy Canova.

I see she died young. What a loss to Hollywood then and to those of us who treasure vintage movies now! Lyda, you were sublime!

I loved Cantor in this film. In fact, it was my first Eddie Cantor film. His crazy eyes and fast quips kept my attention throughout! Although, this movie is really old and seems only one step above a silent film (judging by all their facial dramatics), it shines as a funny pre-groucho marx sarcastic fun fest. Poor innocent Eddie Cantor, knee-deep in trouble as usual escapes from a girl's dormitory, he is found hiding in and gets caught up with bank robbers. Running with his friend to cross the border to Mexico, Cantor tells the border's cops that he too, is Mexican. Cantor outwits the bad guys by pretending to be a bull-fighter. Trying to escape, he encounters many hilarious characters along the way and actually has to perform in a bull-fight - hilarity ensues. Cantor is always known for his quick thinking and fast talking, so some of his best lines are thrown around in this movie. Also, there are the 1932 Goldwyn Girls including Jane Wyman, a platinum blonde Paulette Goddard, Toby Wing and a sixteen year-old named Betty Grable (not credited). This film is a real must-see!

Eddie Cantor musical where a jittery simpleton is forced to cross the border to Mexico and pretend he is a matador. It's nothing special all told. Some of the jokes are funny, yes, but the whole is thin and I'm sure recycled from previous film and radio work.

What is of some interest, is that Busby Berkeley is here with his crafty engineering. Oh, both of his numbers feel tacky and have nothing to do with anything, which is more proof of zero vision behind this. Yet both numbers impress. Both are in that voluptuous mode he would cultivate in coming years: sexual tease, sparkle and shadowplay, the female body as the fulcrum of a continuously shifting erotic landscape. Eddie in blackface among Busby's radiant troupe feels crude and out of place.

He would be on to 42nd Street and history the next year.

Utterly hilarious Pre Code musical with two massive and riotous Busby Berkeley dance sequences, this Eddie cantor farce was a huge success in Depressed 1932. Filmed and released in the musical lull years 1931 and 1932 when a musical was supposed to be box office poison, this bull snorter is genuinely toe tapping and rib tickling. Imagine seeing this in a 3000 seater full of unhappy people needing a laugh! THE KID FROM SPAIN must have blown the roofs off with thunderclaps of laughter from one side of the country to the other. It is on record as the highest rentals /film hire between 1932 and 1939 with $2.6m returned to the distributor. This means it must have sold over $6m in tickets...in the most economically bad time of the decade and at a time when ticket prices were in cents. Imagine today if seventy million Americans went to one film in its first release! We're talking TITANIC level ticket sales. Well THE KID FROM SPAIN did exactly that. The two dance sequences are truly spectacular and very funny...the finale WHAT A PEFECT COMBINATION is about risqué as it gets in reverse rude lyrics given he is singing about "I'm the lock and you're the key". Warners Bros clearly handed Busby their studio key after this UA success and booked a box office berth, ready to shuffle off to their 42nd Street box office honeymoon. This KID is worth adopting for your home.