I loved this move when I first saw it on TV way back in the 1960s. Alas, the DVD put out by the normally super-reliable Warner Archive people is defective. The only decent reel is reel 9. The others are presented with a sound volume far too low. So be warned! You'll have to turn the sound level to max for the first 8 reels (and even then it is still a little below par) and then prepare to be blasted out of your seat when the final reel comes along. Well, at least the defective sound track gives us all a chance to study the writing and the performances. The writing, alas, is not the best. The dialogue is neither as witty nor as clever as director Lloyd Bacon and his players may have hoped. They mostly get around this lack of wit by rattling off their lines at speed. So the script is voluble, but not particularly engaging! Nevertheless, it's hard to keep good actors down, so if you'rte prepared to put up with O'Brien and company making the best of a second-rate script, buy the Warner Archive DVD. Fortunately, the musical numbers are a joy (courtesy of Busby Berkeley), but there are just not enough of them to completely obliterate all the marking time, overly wordy dialogue.

Several characters in this film make it difficult to like. The worst of these is the leading man (Pat O'Brien). He is very abrasive, rather mean-spirited, fast-talking and an alcoholic! In fact, there's really little to recommend this guy. Additionally, Leo Carillo plays a guy who is a cheat and a thief. With characters like these, it's hard to understand what was going through the writer's mind when they created this bizarro film."In Caliente" begins in New York. Larry McArthur (O'Brien) is awakening from a bender and this friend and business partner Harold (Edward Everett Horton) marvels that the drunk writes his theater reviews without even going to see the performances! You assume it's because he's an alcoholic jerk and soon he's drunk again--dead to the world after drinking a bottle of whiskey. Harold is concerned about Larry's self-destructive life as well as his upcoming wedding to a gold-digger (Glenda Farrell) he barely knows, so he whisks the unconscious Larry to a resort town in Mexico, Caliente, to dry him out and get him away from this girl. Unfortunately, Rita Gomez (Delores Del Rio) is there performing--and Larry savaged her some time ago in one of his reviews. Naturally, he also never saw her in person and he truly deserves her to destroy him--which she plans on doing. However, over time they start to fall in love with each other--though I have no idea why. Why would he love her--she's not a whiskey bottle! And, he is just nasty and a drunk--and what sane woman would want that?! For comic relief, we have Horton, though he isn't really used well here. His role is more serious than usual. Also, Leo Carillo plays Rita's uncle. As I mentioned above, he's pretty much a thief and this alone is supposed to make him funny--it didn't.In addition to the romance and comedy, there is a lot of music and dancing--particularly later in the film. These production numbers are the typical Busby Berkeley sort of thing--where the dance numbers are too large for a stadium, let alone a nightclub! One number in particular is notable. "The Lady in Red" is a shockingly risqué number--with very sexily clad ladies who look much more Pre-Code than what you'd expect in 1935 when things were SUPPOSED to be much more sanitized. Oddly, however, the sexiness and beauty of this routine is pretty much ruined when Judy Canova inexplicably enters and begins singing like a slow-witted hillbilly....in Mexico! Huh?! Interestingly, the song morphed into a HUGE and very long production number that lasted a whopping 20 minutes--too long, much too long for my taste.So, we have unlikable characters, alcoholism, musical numbers that are too long and comedy that isn't very funny. Overall, a complete misfire and waste of talent. See it if you must, I think pretty much everyone in the film did better films than this.

OK, if you haven't seen "42nd Street" or "Footlight Parade" or the first few Gold Diggers movies, this is probably not where to start. OTOH, if you have those virtually memorized (and many do), there is much here to enjoy.The moguls of Old Hollywood were gambling men not only in their work, but at play as well. They had an abiding interest in horse racing, which accounts for the preposterous number of pictures set at the track which seldom made money but made the "suits" happy.The horrified WASP establishment froze out any participation by movie folk in Los Angeles area race tracks, so the high rolling execs founded a track of their own across the border in Agua Caliente. So there's some documentary interest here in seeing where the Hollywood elite went to play and, more importantly, bet.It's tough to put together a musical where She can barely sing or dance and He not at all, but this movie manages it. Plenty of crackling Julius Epstein dialog is kept moving briskly by Lloyd Bacon, one of the better straw bosses on the Warners prison farm.Edward Everett Horton, more assertive here than with Fred Astaire, Glenda Farrell, Leo Carillo and Luis Alberni keep the proceedings airborne, and Hermann Bing hits a lifetime peak of sublimity trying to spell "rhododendron" through his gargling Austrian accent. How Judy Canova got into all this I don't know, but her cameo leaves quite an impression. I also brood about Dolores del Rio jumping off the high diving board in platform wedgies. Aren't you supposed to be barefoot for that?There's only one musical hit, "The Lady In Red," and if you've ever seen Bugs Bunny in drag, you already know it. For those who OD'd on platinum blondes in other Busby Berkeley production numbers, they're all brunettes here. George Barnes and Sol Polito turn in some gorgeous camera work, and Orry-Kelly outdoes himself with some of the costumes.This is a fun, feel-good picture that was made in a hurry and turned out a lot better than it had to be. It's good for smiles, and maybe a lot more.

What a mess! This was during the era when many movies tried to be, or include stage shows. Its hard to imagine today, but for a period there, movies were seen as a substitute for attending a lavish show in a theater or club.This follows the standard form, in that there is a story that involves a performer or group of performers and they at some point in the story do their show. Usually, the wrapping story is thin; here it is a romantic comedy. The bit is that our hero is a drunk but brilliant editor of the top magazine in the world.He falls for a gold digger and to save him, the financier of the magazine spirits him to Mexico. There, he encounters a lovely Mexican dancer and falls in love. She is intent on revenge since his drunk review of her ruined her career. But she warms in the end and the two are married. You have gotten more entertainment value out of reading that than the movie can provide.That's one movie. There's a second, sort of embedded in it, a practiced set of tableaux so that we can ogle the female lead, our exotic dancer. A seemingly endless parade of gowns and casual wear is trotted out for her to model in what would be a fantastic Holloywood career of just looking good. Orson Welles would play with her.The third movie is the dance stuff. You have to wait for the entire thing to get to the two numbers. They were assembled by Busby Berkeley. It was in his heyday but is pretty tepid stuff. Oh, they are grand and long and large, but clumsy. The first features some gowns with transparent tops, on the cusp of Hayes, I suppose.The second features lots of horses (on stage?) and our heroine's forehead. She's no dancer.Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.