JohnHowardReid Copyright 15 September 1929 by RKO Distributing Corp., and RKO Productions, Inc. New York opening at the Earl Carroll Theatre: 6 October 1929. U.S. release: 15 September 1929. 15 reels. 11,506 feet. 128 minutes. SYNOPSIS: Who is the mysterious "Kinkajou", a rascally bandit who robs the Fremont bank? Is it Captain James Stewart of the Texas Rangers. Or is it Roberto Ferguson, the brother of "Rio Rita" Ferguson (the beloved of our "just Jim")?NOTES: The stage musical, produced by Florenz Ziegfeld, jr, ran 62 weeks on Broadway at the Ziegfeld Theatre, starting 7 February 1927. J. Harold Murray played Captain Stewart and Ethelind Terry the title role. Wheeler and Woolsey recreated their roles for the screen.With USA/Canadian rentals of $2.4 million, number four at the domestic boxoffice for 1929. Only Sunnyside Up, Broadway Melody and The Cock-Eyed World took more money. COMMENT: There are two words which absolutely must be used in any review of the original Rio Rita and those words are "creaky" and "spectacular". But even more to the point, I rate Rio Rita as one of the most entertaining movies ever made. There are so many things wrong with the movie that I could practically fill a whole book with its faults, starting with the lousy acting, the stupid script and nondescript direction and going right through to the incompetent chorus work, the incredibly bad sound recording, the often blurry cinematography, the jerky continuity and the amazing usurpation of the director's role by Victor Baravalle. Now Mr Baravalle is the music director. For some reason or other, perhaps with the encouragement of producer LeBaron or sound supervisor McDowell, he has taken it upon himself to drown out whole sections of the movie with his orchestra. Not just the lyrics of the songs, mind you, some of which-rendered by the female chorus-are completely indecipherable (not one single word, not one, mind you, being sufficiently audible to give the hearer a clue as to what they're actually singing). No, not just the songs, but whole slews of straight dialogue are also attacked by Mr Baravalle's frantic orchestra. Poor Bebe Daniels has little chance, though John Boles gives the musicians a good run for their money. Don Alvarado is the worst victim. He has little enough dialogue as it is, but all but two of his words are completely blacked out by the band's determined cacophony. It's only Georges Renavent, in the biggest role of his career, who really seems to be totally aware of Baravalle's machinations and always manages to shout above the musical din loud enough to be heard. Fortunately, Baravalle's ploy is often a big success. Who wants to hear the corny dialogue? I'd rather listen to Tierney's compositions any day. And if you're not a particularly rabid fan of Bebe Daniels, you won't mind the fact that she's saddled with a Mexican accent and recorded so poorly. The real star of the Baravalle film is not the McDowell-shaded Miss Daniels, or the too-eagerly pleasant John Boles (who does rather well by Captain Stewart in a stagy sort of way), but Bert Wheeler who has the lion's share of the audible dialogue (which he shares with his usual partners, fast-talking Robert Woolsey and plaintively cute Dorothy Lee) and two absolutely wonderful song-and-dance numbers. The first of these, "On the Loose", is an absolute classic of merry footwork, melodic musical invention and visual delights (including a hop-skip-and-jump overhead shot and the most comic exit ever recorded on film). The other occurs early on in the Pirate Barge scene. Wheeler and Lee share a nice romantic ballad which they top off by an acrobatic stunt in which the pert Lee carries Bert on her back! This is again topped off by another reprise in they are joined by Woolsey and Kaiser.The last half-hour of the movie is presented in Technicolor. A pity the rest of the movie was not tinted too. The chorus costumes especially cry out for color. And the soundproof-boothed washed-out photography is much improved by the added shading provided by Technicolor's laboratory. Big crowd scenes (eagle-eyed fans will spot Woolsey, sans make-up but still smoking his big cigar, posing as a crowd extra in the introductory Mesa Francisco tracking shot) add to the film's luster as a faithful transcription of the original lavish Ziegfeld stage production-an impression reinforced by Reed's penchant for long takes and proscenium-style direction.

bkoganbing When movies began to talk a whole new vista of motion pictures opened up with the musical. Not that musical properties hadn't been done before, most famously Rudolf Friml's Rose Marie was done as a silent film with Joan Crawford in the lead. The Student Prince was also done with Norma Shearer. But singing and dancing was something new and it's no accident that the first talking film, The Jazz Singer was a musical.The guy who made the best musicals back in those days was Florenz Ziegfeld. One of his best was the operetta Rio Rita which ran for 494 performances in 1927-1928. Since the setting was the west, to be exact the Texas-Mexican border, we essentially get the screen's first musical western.Rio Rita was the newly formed RKO Studios big budget film for 1929 and it starred John Boles and Bebe Daniels and Rio Rita was her talking picture debut. She surprised the world with a really nice soprano voice doing those Harry Tierney-Joseph McCarthy songs. Boles was one film's earliest singers and he does the famous Ranger song with gusto in the best Nelson Eddy manner. The other big song from the score was the title song that is sung as a duet with Boles and Daniels. Bebe's best solo number is an item that Tierney and McCarthy wrote specifically for the screen, You're Always In My Arms.Repeating their roles from the stage show are the comedy team of Wheeler and Woolsey who also make their screen debut as well. The team itself was a creation of Florenz Ziegfeld and he used them in one of his Ziegfeld Follies editions. They're involved in a subplot about playboy Wheeler getting a Mexican divorce and getting into the clutches of a shyster attorney in Woolsey. I could see that both of them were individual performers because Bert Wheeler gets himself a fine song and dance number in Out On The Loose. He was quite the dancer, something we rarely saw in his comedy films with Robert Woolsey. Still it was as a team that they have come down to us.The main plot involved Texas Ranger captain John Boles going across the border to ferret out and apprehend a bandit called El Kinkajou and finding romance with Bebe Daniels. Like the first version of Rose Marie though his main suspect is her brother and Texas Rangers like Canadian Mounties put duty first.The film is a photographed stage musical essentially, just like the first two Marx Brothers films, The Cocoanuts and Animal Crackers. But the opulence of a Ziegfeld Show is preserved and that is the main reason to see Rio Rita. The last half hour is in color and we can thank the Deity that was preserved. So for film historians and those who want a glimpse at the showmanship of Florenz Ziegfeld, don't miss Rio Rita when broadcast.

yogi-22 The Kinkajou dance lead by Dorothy Lee is a gem. Dorothy Lee has a white 10 gal. hat on an 8 gal. head, curtesy of a prop man with a strange sense of humor, and looks a bit like a mushroom but it only makes the dance more fun as she tries to keep it on. I wish this part was shown more often with the film.

kos-3 Though Rio Rita has a big reputation among aficionados, I think it's probably due more to its success as a stage vehicle than as a film.Nevertheless, for those who are interested in historical films, I feel Rio Rita serves as a good example of the kinds of obstacles that faced early film makers and actors. As the sound and music was recorded live, there are a number of mistakes, slips and awkward moments. But rather than detract, I think it's interesting to see how the actors and staff negotiated these difficulties. Particularly in the reprise of "Sweetheart We Need Each Other" you can see Dorothy Lee struggling to follow the conductor while Bert Wheeler keeps on distracting her, while Helen Kaiser is clearly trying to follow Lee but both Woolsey and Wheeler keep on getting in her way.Then there are moments that, because the recording was done live, are just over the top. The most hysterical moment has got to be when, after 5 minutes of singing and tap-dancing in a single take, and then after a series of double summersaults, Bert Wheeler literally jumps on Dorothy Lee's back and rides piggy-back while she resumes singing. Wow!And of course, with so few surviving films with two-strip Technicolor, it's always interesting to see how early film makers took advantage of it.