A Message to Garcia

A Message to Garcia has two sterling stars in its cast; Wallace Beery and Barbara Stanwyck. It also features John Boles as a romantic lead for Stanwyck. The film vaguely interesting, but only for the two lead stars. The storyline is not strong enough to gain any momentum. Stanwyck as a Cuban is not the best of casting. (Wouldn't Delores Del Rio have been a much better choice?). Interesting from a historical perspective.

President McKinley -- body by Dell Henderson, voice by John Carradine -- orders Lieutenant John Boles to deliver a message to rebel General Garcia that the US will begin a war against Spain, and cooperate with him. Along the way he is pursued by German spy Alan Hale, and picks up as aides Cuban rebel Barbara Stanwyck and US Marines deserter Wallace Beery.

The last two are inventions for the movie. Beery plays a variation on Long John Silver, and Miss Stanwyck is as hot as a jungle. Neither did the real Lieutenant Rowan head down to Cuba as a stoker carrying a letter. He traveled comfortably with an oral message. That, however, would not have made an interesting movie, and producer Raymond Griffith and director George Marshall lay it on thick.

What will surprise most people, given his fallen reputation, is how good Boles is: simultaneously intrepid, inventive, naive, and romantic. It's romantic piffle as history, a staple of the moom pitchers, but a lot of fun.

.. 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.

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.

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").