This is one of the two-best regarded Eddie Cantor vehicles, the other being the superior ROMAN SCANDALS (1933). In many ways, it follows the typical formula of star comedians during this era: not only does it mix the laughs with songs, but the setting goes from college to south-of- the-border and involves multiple impersonations (a convict about to be executed{!}, performing a musical routine in blackface and, most pertinent to the central plot, a torero) and the second leads' less- than-smooth romance (he is here played by the non-Latin Robert Young!).
Having Busby Berkeley as choreographer and being a "Pre-Code" film, this could hardly fail to have elaborately risqué' numbers (reportedly, among the Goldwyn Girls here are Paulette Goddard, Betty Grable and Jane Wyman but I did not recognize them) – right from the opening moments (which were trimmed for subsequent reissues!) but, even if the Bert Kalmar/Harry Ruby score is quite pleasant, these definitely come off as longueurs when not involving Cantor himself. Director McCarey had started out in Laurel & Hardy comedies, and he would subsequently handle many of their rivals/successors – apart from the star of this film, the Marx Bros., W.C. Fields, Mae West, Harold Lloyd and, in more sophisticated terms, Cary Grant.
Gags (and dialogue exchanges) are plentiful and generally display a very high standard of inventiveness. Among the highlights are: Cantor unwittingly acting as the getaway driver of bank robbers; his brushes with a flustered immigration official and a U.S. cop after the thieving gang; his serenading the heroine (on behalf of Young – incidentally, he is himself pursued throughout by the girl's blonde friend) sporting a gigantic sombrero; and, obviously, his being passed off as a celebrated bullfighter's son (he trains with a docile animal who can be 'controlled' with a gibberish but unwieldly word – however, the villains (including the blonde girl's fiancé J. Carrol Naish) then have it replaced with the most irate of the herd, able even to leap over the spectator barricades{!}, only for the hero to ultimately put it out of action by pure chance). For the record, the film was referenced in the Walt Disney cartoon short MICKEY'S GALA PREMIERE (1933) and can be seen to have influenced – ironically enough – the Laurel & Hardy outings SAPS AT SEA (1940; in Cantor's violent behaviour triggered by noise) and THE BULLFIGHTERS (1945), not to mention the Italian comic Toto' vehicle FIFA E ARENA (1948) and the classic "Looney Tunes" cartoon BULLY FOR BUGS (1953).
Having Busby Berkeley as choreographer and being a "Pre-Code" film, this could hardly fail to have elaborately risqué' numbers (reportedly, among the Goldwyn Girls here are Paulette Goddard, Betty Grable and Jane Wyman but I did not recognize them) – right from the opening moments (which were trimmed for subsequent reissues!) but, even if the Bert Kalmar/Harry Ruby score is quite pleasant, these definitely come off as longueurs when not involving Cantor himself. Director McCarey had started out in Laurel & Hardy comedies, and he would subsequently handle many of their rivals/successors – apart from the star of this film, the Marx Bros., W.C. Fields, Mae West, Harold Lloyd and, in more sophisticated terms, Cary Grant.
Gags (and dialogue exchanges) are plentiful and generally display a very high standard of inventiveness. Among the highlights are: Cantor unwittingly acting as the getaway driver of bank robbers; his brushes with a flustered immigration official and a U.S. cop after the thieving gang; his serenading the heroine (on behalf of Young – incidentally, he is himself pursued throughout by the girl's blonde friend) sporting a gigantic sombrero; and, obviously, his being passed off as a celebrated bullfighter's son (he trains with a docile animal who can be 'controlled' with a gibberish but unwieldly word – however, the villains (including the blonde girl's fiancé J. Carrol Naish) then have it replaced with the most irate of the herd, able even to leap over the spectator barricades{!}, only for the hero to ultimately put it out of action by pure chance). For the record, the film was referenced in the Walt Disney cartoon short MICKEY'S GALA PREMIERE (1933) and can be seen to have influenced – ironically enough – the Laurel & Hardy outings SAPS AT SEA (1940; in Cantor's violent behaviour triggered by noise) and THE BULLFIGHTERS (1945), not to mention the Italian comic Toto' vehicle FIFA E ARENA (1948) and the classic "Looney Tunes" cartoon BULLY FOR BUGS (1953).