The Kissing Bandit ** (1948, Frank Sinatra, Kathryn Grayson, J Carrol Naish) – Classic Movie Review 4717

Frank Sinatra stars as Ricardo, a Mexican bandit’s shy son from Boston, who wants to lead a quiet life back East, but whose family insist that he has to keep up his father’s renown for theft with a kiss in California and become The Kissing Bandit. Things start looking up, though, when he falls for governor’s daughter Teresa (Kathryn Grayson).

Sinatra, when he was still young blue eyes, is uncomfortable (and he does look very silly in MGM’s bandit costume) in director Laslo Benedek’s daft, air-headed flop 1948 musical The Kissing Bandit, with a terminally dull script by Isobel Lennart and John Briard Harding. However, despite being one of MGM’s poorest musicals, it is the very essence of kitsch and some slight campy fun, and it is worth it just to see Kathryn Grayson, Cyd Charisse and Ann Miller.

Grayson has a couple of stirring hit songs – the marvellous ‘Love Is Where You Find It’ (Music by Nacio Herb Brown, Lyrics by Earl K Brent) and ‘Tomorrow Means Romance’ (Music by Nacio Herb Brown, Lyrics by William Katz) – and guest stars Ricardo Montalban, Charisse and Miller get a fine fiesta dance number, ‘Dance of Fury’ (Music by Nacio Herb Brown), tacked on (luckily) at a late stage.

Getting the rough end of it all, Sinatra battles weak songs too: ‘Siesta’, ‘What’s Wrong with Me?’ and ‘If I Steal a Kiss’.

You can perhaps have some affection for it, certainly sympathy for it and its performers, like you may do with a lame dog. Nevertheless, there was never a better film trying to get from under here. Produced by Joe Pasternak, for MGM, it was always a doomed project.

Sono Osato, who plays Bianca, was advertised as the screen’s new sensation, but that never happened. She sings and dances ‘I Like You’ in what was her only film. She was born in Omaha of a Japanese photographer father and Irish-French Canadian mother and her career crashed after Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor. Her father was interned as an enemy alien and she was the target of racial bias. She later found herself on the HUAC blacklist.

Sono Osato died on 26 December 2018, aged 99.

Also in the MGM quality cast are J Carrol Naish, Mildred Natwick, Mikhail Rasumny, Billy Gilbert, Clinton Sundberg, Edna Skinner, Vincente Gomez, Carleton Young and Byron Foulger.

Kathryn Grayson aka Zelma Kathryn Hedrick (1922–2010).

Supposedly, MGM forced a reluctant Sinatra to do the part. He said he never watched the film as he was embarrassed by doing it. Grayson (1922–2010) said it was her least favourite of her films.

© Derek Winnert 2016 Classic Movie Review 4717

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