Pepe * (1960, Cantinflas, Dan Dailey, Shirley Jones) – Classic Movie Review 5690

Cantinflas from Around the World in 80 Days (1956) stars as the young Mexican Pepe, who follows his magnificent white stud stallion pet horse Don Juan to Hollywood when it is bought by a film director called Ted Holt (Dan Dailey). He then finds himself involved in the movies and falling for actress-wannabe waitress Suzie Murphy (Shirley Jones), in this tedious, bloated Columbia Pictures show.

Producer-director George Sidney’s 1960 overblown, under-achieving musical comedy offers three and a quarter hours of mindless, charmless plot meanderings that go nowhere very, very slowly. To be fair, it is a crafted piece of work, and scored seven Oscar nominations, all of them technical ones.

The concept seems to have been that, like with Around the World in 80 Days, a glittering galaxy of guest talent would guarantee a hit. The galaxy of stars is all here, with 35 grade-A guest stars. But this turkey is distinguished only for wasting them all on pointless cameos which hardly have time to register on the retina before they are gone.

However, certainly if you want to be vintage star spotting, this is the one: the cast of stars popping in too be recognised includes Maurice Chevalier, Charles Coburn, Bing Crosby, Billie Burke, Richard Conte, Bobby Darin, Sammy Davis Jr, Jimmy Durante, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Hedda Hopper, Edward G Robinson, Cesar Romero, Greer Garson, Tony Curtis, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Joey Bishop, Janet Leigh, Peter Lawford, Kim Novak, André Previn, Debbie Reynolds, and Jack Lemmon.

Also in the cast are Ernie Kovacks, William Demarest, Carlos Montalban, Vicki Trickett, Matt Mattox, Hank Henry, Suzanne Lloyd, Carlos Rivas, ‘Snub’ Pollard, Ray Walker, Robert Williams, Franklyn Farnum and Michael Callan. 

Judy Garland’s singing voice is heard as a vocalist on the radio, singing the Oscar-nominated song Faraway Part of Town (music by André Previn, lyrics by Dory Previn), and danced by Shirley Jones and Dan Dailey. Bobby Darin performs That’s How It Went, All Right, Maurice Chevalier performs September Song, and Bing Crosby performs Let’s Fall In Love and Pennies from Heaven. These songs just about carry the film when Cantinflas’s limited charm cannot.

The screenplay is by Dorothy Kingsley and Claude Binyon, based on a story by Leonard Spigelgass and Sonya Lieven taken from the play Broadway Magic by Ladislas Bus-Fekete [Leslie Bush-Fekete].

A box-office flop, it was cut to 170 minutes for its European screenings, with many star cameos trimmed. Later TV showings have been cut further to 157 minutes.

© Derek Winnert 2017 Classic Movie Review 5690

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