Moviecut—Beauty and the Bandit

source: Beauty and the Bandit

"Beauty and the Bandit" was part of Monogram's Cisco Kid series from 1946-47 starring Gilbert Roland as Cisco. A young Frenchman is transporting a large amount of silver to by some land in California. Naturally, the Cisco Kid takes an interest. He steals a ride in the stagecoach carrying the young man and the loot. Cisco's gang holds up the stage and takes the money. Cisco returns to the coach and continues on the journey. We learn that there is a land scam afoot. Doc Wells (William Gould) and Doctor Juan Valega (Martin Garralaga) are poisoning the feed for local farm animals thus causing them to die and resulting in the villains acquiring properties when the owners are forced to sell. When Cisco and the young man arrive, to nobody's surprise (except for the cast members), the young man turns out to be the lovely Jeanne DuBois (Ramsay Ames) who is representing her father who has died. And that's about it. The greater part of the film has the womanizing Cisco romancing Jeanne and the local waitress Rosita (Vida Adams). Roland again plays Cisco as a cigarette smoking, tequila drinking, love 'em and leave 'em caballero. He rides with a gang of banditos which includes a "Pancho like" character called "Baby" (Frank Yaconelli). Unable to conceal many of her charms, the lovely Ramsay Ames makes a rather unconvincing young boy. The casting of Gould as the chief villain is somewhat of a mystery to me. He spends most of the time in an easy chair in front of a fire and was much too long in the tooth to make a convincing adversary for Roland. Normally when this happens in a "B" western, the villain has an able bodied hench man to fight his battles for him. Not so here. His partner is Garralaga who plays Valega as a wimpish, spineless foe. In other roles George J. Lewis is totally wasted as the bumbling police captain and Glenn Strange makes an all too brief appearance as a singing sailor friend of Cisco's. Both would have made better villains than Gould and Garralaga. No blazing action here folks. A disappointing entry in the Cisco Kid series.

Gilbert Roland spends this episode of the Monogram Cisco Kid series frustrating evil-doing William Gould by chain-smoking and making love to a succession of lovelies, including Frenchwoman Ramsey Ames -- she spends the first quarter hour of the movie pretending to be a man. Being Gilbert Roland, he is remarkably successful in all these endeavors. We're now in Old California, which may explain why Zorro's TV father, George J. Lewis is in this movie. He's a police captain who keeps trying to find and arrest Cisco. Although the movie doesn't settle down to brass tacks until the last ten minutes, it's a fun, light-hearted romp for most of its length, and those last ten minutes are pretty scary. Gould is quite obviously a bad 'un, but he doesn't work too hard, spending much of his time sitting in a chair in a hotel, and a lot of the rest being a chuckling voice in the dark. Overall, it's a remarkably entertaining movie.

I think that of all the villains that Gilbert Roland encountered in his Cisco Kid films William Gould and Martin Garralaga are the scurviest. These two are waging a kind of chemical warfare against the peasant population of San Marino, California to get their land. Roland gets involved because a beautiful senorita Ramsey Ames is investing her money with Garralaga and Gould. She also comes in Male drag, but you can't for the Cisco Kid in these matters. There' a very exciting gun battle between Roland and Gould at the climax. Can't describe it, you have to see it to believe.. One of the best Cisco kid movies with Gilbert Roland

Monogram Studios is one of the co-called "poverty row studios"--one of several very low budget studios of the 1930s and 40s. Often, to save money, these studios leased studio space from the larger studios at night and the films were generally B-films. Probably one of the biggest studios on poverty row was Monogram--the people whose hottest property in the 40s were the Charlie Chan films. They also made a lot of lesser Westerns--as the bigger stars of these series films (Gene Autry and Roy Rogers) were with rival Republic Studios. Starting in 1946, Monogram branched out to make the Cisco Kid series and this is the third of seven. It's a particularly weak and stupid film in the series for many reasons. The film begins with Cisco and his men looking at a ship supposedly along shore--but the footage you see is of a clipper well out to see! Nice use of stock footage, huh?! The film then has an idea that is just brainless! A young "Frenchman" is escorting money by stagecoach. The problem is that the big surprise about the actual identity of this person is ridiculous. It seems that HE is actually a SHE and it is obvious to EVERYONE but the people in this film! She simply looked nothing like a man...nothing! Now the fact that he/she has no French accent but uses very poorly spoken French now and again is bad, but hardly noticeable considering the serious gender problem. Basing the film on a gimmick this ludicrous is a serious problem, indeed!! Naturally, given that the Cisco Kid is a horny and debonair hero, he naturally falls for this lady. Having him fall for her as a guy would have been a lot more interesting, but they chose not to go there! Too bad, as it might have helped the film significantly--it sure needed something! Aside from the very weak main plot point, the rest of the film is a very standard B series Western. Nothing outstanding to make up for the general stupidity of the Frenchman gimmick and in addition, the dialog is often rather silly. As such, it's quite easy to skip unless you are a huge fan of the genre. By the way, there must have been some copyright issue with these films or they changed the plot after it was originally shot. Many times when they refer to the Cisco Kid, the words are obviously re-dubbed by a third party! It's very noticeable some times.

source: Beauty and the Bandit

Gilbert Roland spends this episode of the Monogram Cisco Kid series frustrating evil-doing William Gould by chain-smoking and making love to a succession of lovelies, including Frenchwoman Ramsey Ames -- she spends the first quarter hour of the movie pretending to be a man. Being Gilbert Roland, he is remarkably successful in all these endeavors. We're now in Old California, which may explain why Zorro's TV father, George J. Lewis is in this movie. He's a police captain who keeps trying to find and arrest Cisco. Although the movie doesn't settle down to brass tacks until the last ten minutes, it's a fun, light-hearted romp for most of its length, and those last ten minutes are pretty scary. Gould is quite obviously a bad 'un, but he doesn't work too hard, spending much of his time sitting in a chair in a hotel, and a lot of the rest being a chuckling voice in the dark. Overall, it's a remarkably entertaining movie.

Monogram Studios is one of the co-called "poverty row studios"--one of several very low budget studios of the 1930s and 40s. Often, to save money, these studios leased studio space from the larger studios at night and the films were generally B-films. Probably one of the biggest studios on poverty row was Monogram--the people whose hottest property in the 40s were the Charlie Chan films. They also made a lot of lesser Westerns--as the bigger stars of these series films (Gene Autry and Roy Rogers) were with rival Republic Studios. Starting in 1946, Monogram branched out to make the Cisco Kid series and this is the third of seven. It's a particularly weak and stupid film in the series for many reasons. The film begins with Cisco and his men looking at a ship supposedly along shore--but the footage you see is of a clipper well out to see! Nice use of stock footage, huh?! The film then has an idea that is just brainless! A young "Frenchman" is escorting money by stagecoach. The problem is that the big surprise about the actual identity of this person is ridiculous. It seems that HE is actually a SHE and it is obvious to EVERYONE but the people in this film! She simply looked nothing like a man...nothing! Now the fact that he/she has no French accent but uses very poorly spoken French now and again is bad, but hardly noticeable considering the serious gender problem. Basing the film on a gimmick this ludicrous is a serious problem, indeed!! Naturally, given that the Cisco Kid is a horny and debonair hero, he naturally falls for this lady. Having him fall for her as a guy would have been a lot more interesting, but they chose not to go there! Too bad, as it might have helped the film significantly--it sure needed something! Aside from the very weak main plot point, the rest of the film is a very standard B series Western. Nothing outstanding to make up for the general stupidity of the Frenchman gimmick and in addition, the dialog is often rather silly. As such, it's quite easy to skip unless you are a huge fan of the genre. By the way, there must have been some copyright issue with these films or they changed the plot after it was originally shot. Many times when they refer to the Cisco Kid, the words are obviously re-dubbed by a third party! It's very noticeable some times.

The TV prints of BEAUTY AND THE BANDIT did, indeed, have all references to the Cisco Kid and related matters (even in the credits) dubbed or blacked out. This was because at the time that these films were made available to TV, Gene Autry's Flying A Productions had the exclusive television rights to the Cisco Kid character. The movies could be shown on the home-screen, but not presented or marketed as being Cisco Kid stories or movies. Something similar happened with the TV show CAPTAIN MIDNIGHT when it went into syndication -- he suddenly became "Jet Jackson," because the original sponsor owned the Captain Midnight name and all rights therein.