Warner Baxter might have deserved an Oscar nomination for the great 42nd Street, but winning for this slow and dated western is amazing. He beat out Paul Muni, Lewis Stone, Chester Morris, and George Bancroft. Maybe because In Old Arizona was the first talkie to use lots of location shots. Baxter now seems like a very strange choice to have played the Cisco Kid (where was Ramon Novarro?), and it's hard to accept him in the role. Dorothy Burgess made her film debut here as Tonia Maria. She veers wildly from incredibly bad overacting to a few scenes where she is good. Edmund Lowe (like Baxter) was an established silent film star (What Price Glory?) and he comes off best here as the Sergeant. While Baxter and Burgess chew the scenery, Lowe underplays and seems natural and breezy. J. Farrell MacDonald is on the stage coach that Cisco robs; Soledad Jimenez is good as the cook, and Henry Armetta is the funny barber. The other actors are just plain awful. In Old Arizona also won an Oscar nomination as best film, losing (thank god) to The Broadway Melody. All 5 nominees were talkies. To be fair, there are some good outdoor shots in this film, but the sound is generally weak. And the song that opens the film (played to a black screen, before the title even comes up) is hideous.
Review of In Old Arizona
