Thu 30 Apr 2009
Western Movie Review: CAPTAIN THUNDER (1930).
Posted by Steve under Reviews , Western movies[4] Comments
CAPTAIN THUNDER. Warner Brothers, 1930. Fay Wray, Victor Varconi, Charles Judels, Robert Elliott, Don Alvarado, Robert Emmett Keane. Director: Alan Crosland.
It was “Captain’s Day” one day last week on TCM. This one followed Captain Applejack which I watched and commented on a couple of days ago, with several more taped and ready to be watched as soon as I’m able, including Captain Blood, which is first movie I remember watching as a kid, when I was perhaps six or seven years old.
Many of the other movies in this grouping, which were shown all day, seem to have been newly recovered from the vaults, but if so, this one may as well go back in. It does feature Fay Wray, whom I can watch in anything, as this movie has proven, but it has little else going for it that would prompt more than the slightest recommendation.
Not only does Fay Wray have a leading role, but the very first time we see her, she’s in a very skimpy slip and little else, a fact worth both pointing out and explaining.
Captain Thunder, a Mexican bandit raising havoc with the forces of the utterly inept and totally comical El Commandante Ruiz (Charles Judels), has previously robbed the stagecoach in which she was coming into town, and part of the tribute demanded was the outer clothing of all its passengers. (And perhaps the driver and the fellow riding shotgun as well. I should go back and look. I was distracted at the time.)
El Capitan Thunder is played most boisterously by Victor Varconi, a Hungarian playing a Mexican in this movie. His career began in the silents back in his homeland, starting in 1913, and as is often the case with many early talking films, some actors did not at first understand that less is sometimes more.
Be that as it may, Captain Thunder’s credo is that he will keep all of the promises he makes, which puts him in a quandary when one he makes to the slim and supremely beautiful Ynez Dominguez (Fay Wray) runs headlong into one he makes to the evil Pete Morgan (Robert Elliott), a strutting gent with eyes on Ynez himself, although she is about to marry another. Much booing and hissing expected here.
Fay Wray’s career survived this pre-King Kong film, I’m happy to say, and surprisingly enough, so did Victor Varconi’s, who had many small parts and supporting roles through the early 1950s. Director Alan Crosland died in 1936 at the age of only 41, but before that, he was at the helm of a couple of Perry Mason movies, and The White Cockatoo (1935), a film based on a pretty good mystery novel by Mignon G. Eberhart.
April 30th, 2009 at 9:02 pm
As far as I can tell Captain Thunder seems to have been inspired (if your can use that word with a film this bad) by two 1929 shorts called The Gay Caballero (not related to either the 1932 George O’Brien film or the 1940 Cesar Romero Cisco Kid film).
But yes, Fay Wray is always worth looking at, and almost invaribly better than the material she’s in.
May 1st, 2009 at 1:17 pm
I saw the second half of this last week, and quite enjoyed it. Hope they re-run it some time, to see the rest.
The flamboyant actors of the era seem enjoyable, IMHO. Victor Varconi did a good job in his last silent, THE DIVINE LADY, and as a Russian prince in ROBERTA.
The IMDB says he started out on “the Transylvanian stage”. People tend to forget that Transylvania was a real place. It was the first place in Europe to have Freedom of Religion…
May 1st, 2009 at 3:10 pm
Mike
Forgiving the flamboyancy, and even though most of the comments left on IMDB are rather vicious in expressing their displeasure, I admit there’s a certain amount of charm to this rather short film. Even before you left your comment, I was wondering how the audiences of the time might have reacted to it.
That we’ll probably never know, but here are some excerpts from the review in the New York Times:
“This production is scarcely a successful entertainment, for while it has its moments of pleasing levity, a good deal of the dialogue is not understandable because of Mr. Varconi’s exaggeration of his naturally imperfect English diction. […]
“Here and there Alan Crosland’s direction is good, but the story on the whole is one that would have benefited by a brighter script […] Far too much footage is given over to the pseudo-comic speeches made by Charles Judels as Commandant Ruiz.”
“Miss Wray is attractive and aside from her indistinct utterances she gives a reasonably good performance. Mr. Varconi’s impersonation […] would be infinitely more effective if one could understand more of what he says. […] Robert Elliott, who has contributed good work to the screen, is hardly in his element as Morgan.”
I’m sure that TCM will be showing it again. I missed taping a couple of Louis Hayward-Patricia Medina “Captain Blood” pirate dramas from the 1950s last week, and I’m hoping they turn up again too.
May 1st, 2009 at 5:16 pm
Is it me or Varconi looked something like Gilbert Roland? I first thought it was him on the photo.