In Old Arizona **** (1928, Warner Baxter, Edmund Lowe, Dorothy Burgess) – Classic Movie Review 8283

Director Irving Cummings’s 1928 Western In Old Arizona stars Warner Baxter, who won the 1930 Oscar for Best Actor in a Leading Role for his first appearance as O Henry’s guitar-strumming bandit, the Cisco Kid.

In this important and still interesting, if now faded and gloomy-seeming romantic triangle Western, both Cisco and Army Sergeant Mickey Dunn (Edmund Lowe) are vying for the lovely Tonia Maria (Dorothy Burgess). Cisco lavishes money on the unfaithful Tonia, but then Dunn gets together with Tonia to plot to claim the reward for Cisco’s capture.

Tom Barry wrote the story and dialogue, and his Oscar-nominated screenplay is based on the character of the Cisco Kid in the story The Caballero’s Way by O Henry.

In Old Arizona was a huge hit in 1929 and was greatly praised and admired. It won a clutch of four other Oscar nominations: for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Writing and Best Cinematography. It is also important as a major technical innovation for the movies. It was the first all-sound Western, indeed the first all-talking, sound-on-film feature, and the first talkie to be filmed on outdoors location (but not in Arizona, actually California and Utah, filming in Bryce Canyon National Park and Zion National Park in Utah, and the Mission San Juan Capistrano and the Mojave Desert in California). It was Burgess’s film début.

Also in the cast are J Farrell MacDonald, Fred Warren, Henry Armetta, Joe Brown, John Webb Dillon, Roy Stewart, James Bradbury Jr, Tom Santschi, Frank Campeau, Alphonse Ethier, Pat Hartigan, Helen Lynch, James A Marcus, Chris-Pin Martin, Duke Martin, Frank Nelson, Jim Farley, Soledad Jiménez, Ivan Linow, Edward Peil Sr and Lola Salvi.

Original director Walsh was also to have starred as The Cisco Kid, but he lost his right eye in a bizarre car accident when a jackrabbit jumped through his windshield shortly before filming and Cummings took over the direction. Buddy Roosevelt was then cast as Cisco, but he broke his leg shortly before the picture was to start again, and Baxter took over. Walsh can still be seen as a cowboy on horseback under a big hat in chase scenes and long shots in the film. Walsh never acted again but resumed his career as director, wearing his trademark eye-patch.

Baxter does some incidental singing and thus contributed to creating the image of the popular singing cowboy in the movies.

It premiered in Los Angeles on 25 December 1928 and was released on 20 January 1929.

Baxter followed it up with The Arizona Kid (1930), The Cisco Kid (1931) and The Return of the Cisco Kid (1939).

Stanley Herbert Dunn was the first Cisco Kid in 1914’s The Caballero’s Way.

© Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 8283

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com