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If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

"Fiesta" is a reworking of the old story from "The Jazz Singer". The story is set in Mexico and begins with a famous bullfighter, Antonio Morales. He has a set of twins, Mario (Ricardo Montalban) and Maria (Esther Williams) and Antonio has determined that his son WILL one day become a great matador like himself. While Mario is quite good, his love is not bullfighting but music. Eventually, Mario runs away because of all the pressure and Maria dresses like Mario and fools EVERYONE (?) by going into the ring herself and becoming a great matador. What's to become of all this? "Fiesta" is a pretty good film in some ways. It gives a nice portrait of Mexicans (though too many of the actors aren't Hispanic) and is more sensitive than many Hollywood productions. Also, being from MGM, the film looks great--with wonderful music, color and dancing. But to me the best part was watching Montalban in his first film and watching him play the piano. If the piano music wasn't being played by him, he sure faked it very, very well. However, on the down side, the film is SUPER-creepy. Maria's relationship with Mario is just creeptastic. Her vocabulary when talking about him is peppered with words like 'darling' and 'sweetheart' and she ALWAYS talks to him in a much more loving manner than when she talks to her fiancée (John Carrol). It really does make the viewer think of twincest and I cannot believe that the writers and others connected with the film didn't see this. Weird and kind of sick but despite this an enjoyable film.By the way, the bullfighting scenes are VERY sanitized. On one hand, the viewer doesn't need to worry about all the blood and gore. But, on the other, it makes this 'sport' seem very harmless.

This film introduces Richardo Montalban and Cyd Charisse (to the American public). And it features much festive Mexican music. One of the highlights of the film is a dance where Charisse is electric--in my opinion outdoing some of the Rita Hayworth performances that preceded. Montalban strikes a dramatic figure on the dance floor, in the bull ring, and (surprisingly) at the piano. Other reviewers have wondered about his piano technique. It is just a guess, but I think he was a very good faker (not so good with the guitar). His timing is excellent and his fingering is even fairly credible. Just good enough to allow the director to linger on the keyboard more than directors usually do when non-pianists perform.Yes the script is fairly predictable, but I found the film enjoyable. Esther Williams may not be at her best here, and the role certainly does not require a great range or dramatic power, but she is, as always, a beautiful breath of fresh air.I am not a fan of bullfights. If all they did was tease the bull with a cape, bullfights might be purely artistic expressions of athleticism. But those portions of the fight that occur outside of the cape work are brutal and merely sad. Fortunately, this film only deals with the cape work. As such, I found the scenes in the ring interesting. How many times can you watch a bull charge at a cape before it become boring and repetitive? Usually, only a few times. But this film illustrates the variations in cape work and the daring of the matadors.

As an add to a review above which wondered whether Ricardo Montalban had any actual experience as a pianist or was just faking it, I think I can definitively answer, as a pianist myself, yes, he's a pianist (having just seen Fiesta, and the barroom scene where his character Mario Morales takes to the house upright to accompany himself, his composition having just come up on the radio).That's not him on the soundtrack, probably, but he's most definitely fingering the quite complex piece correctly (con mucho gusto!), and this means that yes, Senor Montalban has a talent many of us were previously unaware of.Discovered to my surprise the same thing about Gary Oldman, as I watched him as Ludwig Van Beethoven in Immortal Beloved, and Kyle McLachlan as Ray Manzarek in The Doors.

John Carroll has always been one of my favorite actors, but Hollywood just didn't seem to notice his appeal. He was a very good looking and talented actor. I saw many of his movies and really enjoyed seeing him on the screen.