A Message to Garcia

Turgid, set bound drama with some wild miscasting in central roles. It's not that the film isn't filled with some very good performers, Beery is believable as a renegade wanderer looking for the prime advantage but he's the only actor that really seems to fit. John Boles gives his usual block of wood performance, a dull hole at the center of the movie. The most ludicrous of all is Barbara Stanwyck, a great actress yes but a native born Cuban senorita? never! They couldn't have borrowed Lupe Velez or Dolores del Rio? Perhaps not Cubans either but at least being Latin they would have not stood out so glaringly.

All great stars have turkeys in their filmographies this is one manages to take down both Missy and Wally Beery. What could have been an interesting rendering of a historical event becomes just so much studio fodder to fill a double bill.

"A Message to Garcia" has the sort of insane casting that was not very uncommon during Hollywood's golden age. Think about it--Barbara Stanwyck plays a Cuban woman! And, Wallace Beery plays an American living in Cuba for ten years...which sounds plausible except that he knows almost no Spanish at all!!! What was the studio thinking?! Surely they could have gotten some folks more suited to these roles! And, surely Stanwyck could have at least tried to put on some sort of non-American accent!!

This film is set in the period just before the Spanish-American War in 1898. The President of the US has sent an emissary (John Boles) to Cuba on a secret mission to deliver a message to the leader of the Cuban rebel army led by General Garcia. The problem is locating the guy. After all, it's not like Garcia wants anyone to find him--otherwise the Spanish army would have quickly captured him! Once in Cuba, Boles is assisted both by Stanwyck and Beery during a long trek through the jungle. Oddly, folks seem to die several times during this journey--only to amazingly appear later in the movie! Pretty weird! Overall, this is a dopey movie. Surprisingly, its best aspect is Beery's broad acting because he does bring some energy and humor to the film--two things otherwise lacking in the movie. A rather limp film in most ways--surely the studio could have done better.

By the way, after writing this review I listened to Robert Osborne (of Turner Classic Movies) talk about this film. Apparently it was a bomb at the box office--reviewers and the public just wouldn't accept Stanwyck in such a ridiculous role! I would rank this one up there with John Wayne as Genghis Khan and Clark Gable as the Irish leader, Charles Stewart Parnell, or Katharine Hepburn as a Chinese woman in "Dragon Seed". It's a film she clearly should have been ashamed of, as she was the worst thing about it.

1936's "A Message to Garcia" is lackluster Fox fiction set in Cuba during the Spanish American War of 1898. US President William McKinley (Dell Henderson) is the one sending the message to the Cuban general (Enrique Acosta) fighting the Spaniards, who have hired a German assassin (Alan Hale) to intercept the man carrying the vital paper (John Boles). Barbara Stanwyck plays the Cuban girl who falls for him, while top billed Wallace Beery supplies comic relief through the lengthy jungle trek, playing off both sides during the conflict. Not one of Barbara's more stellar efforts, with her screen time sadly limited, though Alan Hale makes a surprisingly effective villain. An uncredited John Carradine does not appear on screen as President McKinley, but it is his voice that we hear in the opening sequence, sounding as though he were recorded underwater. Perhaps cast for his physical resemblance to the President, Dell Henderson must have come up short, so Carradine's more authoritative tones were rather poorly dubbed in, an unconvincing performance despite the combined efforts of both actors (Carradine had recently provided several dubbed voices in Cecil B. DeMille's "The Crusades").

I guess I've seen so many films that take place in foreign countries that bad casting no longer bothers me. Once you've seen Katharine Hepburn in Dragon Seed, there are no more shocks left.

Here we have Barbara Stanwyck of all people playing a Cuban in "A Message to Garcia" from 1936. I saw an awful print of this. However, it wasn't awful enough not to see how beautiful Stanwyck looked with darker hair and darker eye makeup. She was very sexy, and I think she had good chemistry with John Boles.

The story concerns President McKinley send. Ing a messenger, Lt. Rowan (Boles) to Cuba during the Spanish-American war with, you guessed it, a secret message to General Garcia, who leads a rebellion against Spanish rule in Cuba.

Rowan poses as a Canadian. Once in Cuba, he meets a con artist, Dory (Wallace Beery), who is a deserter from the Marines. For money, Dory says he will take Rowan to a patriot who can lead him to Garcia. But by the time they reach him, he has been killed.

The patriot's daughter Raphaelita (Stanwyck) joins them in their quest to meet Garcia. Many problems ensue, including Raphaelita being shot. Finally, Rowan is taken to Garcia. Or is he.

Reading other reviews, I guess this thing was panned. I actually kind of liked it. Wallace Beery steals the film as the hard-drinking Dory, whom Raphaelita doesn't trust initially. Alan Hale plays Dr. Krug, who is set on diverting the message.

I wish the print had been better, but I was interested in what was going on during the film.

.. from 20th Century Fox and director George Marshall. Lt. Andrew Rowan (John Boles) is on a secret mission from President McKinley to deliver a message to Cuban revolutionary General Garcia. Rowan enlists the help of local scoundrel Dory (Wallace Beery) and vengeful plantation owner's daughter Raphaelita (Barbara Stanwyck) to find the reclusive revolutionaries, all the while being hunted by the Spanish government forces led by German Dr. Krug (Alan Hale).

This is a highly-fictionalized account of a real incident during the Spanish-American War. Boles is passable as the heroic lead, and he gets some good scenes near the end when he's being tortured. Stanwyck isn't exactly the first name I'd think of when casting a Cuban girl, and she really doesn't do anything to make that more believable other than use a few Spanish phrases and maybe darkening her hair a little. Beery plays the same boozy, disheveled slob with a heart of gold that he played so often. I'd heard this was awful, so maybe that tempered my expectations enough that I didn't mind it so much. Hale is effective as the villain.