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Great Film overall

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

WARNING: a blackface musical number is included. If sensitive to such, best not to view this film, or close your eyes during that portion.Eddie Cantor leads another hilarious musicomedy. For those who couldn't find Betty Grable among the Goldwyn Girls, I'm sure the first girl featured was Betty. Looked and sounded just like her! After featuring close-ups of most of the girls, they change into bathing suits and peel off, on by one, into a swimming pool, and form a rotating wheel with a complex spoke structure, as seen from an overhead shot. All of these features are signature Busby Berkeley choreography. The next morning, the house mother arrives to wake up the co-eds, including a reluctant Eddie, hiding under his sheet. The mother scolds one of the girls, making her repeat "I'm a naughty girl". Eddie parrots her when revealed. Seems his Mexican friend Ricardo put him up to this prank. However, the Dean doesn't think it's funny, and expels them both.Eddie soon finds himself the accidental wheelman for a trio of bank robbers who mistake his car for theirs. They decide to take him to Mexico, despite his lack of a passport. He has quite a time of it with the immigration officer. This includes a segment where the officer is trying to talk to him and to his wife on the phone at the same time, getting everything mixed up. A private investigator shows up and wants to know Eddie's identity. Friend Ricardo tells him Eddie's the great bullfighter Sebastian II, newly arrived from Spain. They arrive at the hacienda of Ricardo's girlfriend, Anita. Eddie sings "In the Moonlight", with various of the Goldwyn Girls lounging around. Anita's father, Alonzo(Noah Beery) says Eddie's father was his best friend until he was killed. Eddie and Ricardo are put in jail for fighting with Pancho and friend Pedro over the girls(Anita and her blond friend Rosalie). Eddie is nearly executed by a firing squad by mistake and later escapes. Eddie returns to the Hacienda and thinks he has rescued Anita in an auto escape. Later, he discovers he has Anita's friend Rosalie, who wants some romance in the pale moonlight. Eddie is reluctant at first, but finally gives her a massive kiss and hug. Eddie then sings "Look What You've Done"The bank investigator says he will be at the bull fight to see if Eddie is really Sabastian II. Ricardo has arranged for Eddie to fight a bull trained to sit down when hears a magic word. But Pedro and Pancho switch bulls, giving Eddie the mean killer, Diablo. During a break in the action, Eddie sings "What a Perfect Combination", while in blackface. The Goldwyn Girls, in Mexican dress, dance to this tune. Sometimes an overhead projection is used, as the girls form fancy geometric circles.Now, for the bull fight: It starts out badly, as the spectators notice he forgot to put on his pants, under his cape. Then, the bull sits on him and he bites the bull's tail to restart the action. Diablo chases Eddie inside and outside of the arena. But, in the end, it's concluded Eddie is the winner. The bank investigator now reveals that Eddie was never a suspect in the robbery. He just wanted to see Eddie fight a bull!The musical numbers were composed by Harry Ruby and Bert Kalmar, who would be honored in the musical "Three Little Words", starring Fred Astaire and Red Skelton.I strongly suspect that Eddie's films are almost never shown on TV because of the small portion done in blackface, except for one film. He was an avid practitioner of blackface, failing to anticipate the eventual political incorrectness of the art.At first, I couldn't decide if Lyda Roberti(as Rosalie) was a poor actress, or if that was simply her style of comedy. Eventually, I concluded the latter. In a prior show, she had played a sexy dizzy blonde with a passion for chasing men, which is what she is here. Her father had been a circus clown, and she had performed in circuses since a child.J. Carrol Naish was an Irishman who was usually cast as an ethnic supporting actor, villainous or not, in more than 200 films. For example, he played Sitting Bull in the 1950 musicomedy "Annie Get Your Gun", as well as in the film "Sitting Bull".Several reviewers comment on the strange casting of Robert Young as a Mexican. Well, neither his girlfriend , Anita, nor Rosalie looked typical Mexican either. I think the casters wanted someone tall, with an aristocratic bearing, to match Anita's aristocratic status. Goofy Rosalie then seemed an appropriate match for goofy Eddie.This film may be purchased as a DVD in a set of 4 Eddie Cantor films.

1931 and 1932 were lean years for the movie musical, and other than a few Jeanette MacDonald/Maurice Chevalier romantic operettas, some behind the scenes looks at radio and two Eddie Cantor musicals with some fantastic Busby Berkley choreography, the genre was considered box office poison. Berkley would fix that in 1933 by moving over to Warner Brothers and create some of the most magical, memorable movie musicals in movie history, which leaves the Cantor films forgotten by most everybody but his most ardent fans. If you look at "Whoopee!", "Palmy Days" and "The Kid From Spain", you will see the Busby Berkley magic at work and even visualize his Warner Brothers smash hits in your mind. He wasn't working on perfecting his visual style; It already was perfect.Take into consideration "Inside a Dormitory", the Goldwyn Girl chorus number which opens "The Kid From Spain"; Similar themes were later utilized in "42nd Street", "Gold Diggers of 1933" and "Footlight Parade", from the scantily clad chorus girls, the overhead shots and like "By a Waterfall" in "Footlight Parade", the most delightfully audacious swimming pool you've ever seen on film. Even Esther Williams would drool over this! "The Kid From Spain" isn't a great film by any means, but Cantor's charm and the Berkley touch make it memorable. A totally miscast Robert Young is ridiculously given the role of a Latin lover, Cantor's college roommate who invites Eddie to go south with him after they are both expelled for the girl's dormitory occurrence. By mistake, Cantor is involved in a bank robbery which leads to a hysterical scene of him trying to get across the border and his encounter with the frazzled guard (Paul Porcasi). In Mexico, he claims to be the famous matador Don Sebastian II which leads to rivalry with another matador and an encounter with a very determined bull. Meanwhile, Young and his girlfriend (Ruth Hall, another Caucasian cast as a Mexican) try to be together in spite of her father's promise of her to another man while Cantor finds himself involved with blonde Mexican Lyda Roberti (part Russian/part Polish) who is also coveted by a hot-blooded native. The silliness of the miscastings is easily overlooked considering the lavishness of the production.Not utilized in the opening dormitory number, Cantor gets two songs of his own, the best of which is a blackface number where in disguise he entertains a pre-bullfight crowd with the memorable "What a Perfect Combination!". His entrance with two actual black dancers has him being pushed back to sing, and all of a sudden, Goldwyn girls start popping out of all the tables. I tried to spot Betty Grable and Paulette Goddard among the chorus girls in the two big production numbers but didn't have any luck, but considering how young they were at the time (both not yet 18), it would be somewhat difficult to recognize them although Lucille Ball the following year in "Roman Scandals" was very easy to spot. A perfectly entertaining pre-code musical, this survives its now dated concepts simply by being just totally enjoyable, if just a tad overlong. They don't make em' like this anymore!

I have liked Eddie Cantor films for some time even though now in the twenty-first century he's practically forgotten. That's because even in the bad ones, his character and personality is very likable and sweet. Plus, when he is given excellent material, his films are tough to be beat--particularly FORTY LITTLE MOTHERS and Hollywood CANTEEN.Cantor was a huge name on stage and was famous for his comedic song and dance numbers. Like Al Jolson, Cantor also often performed in black-face--something that would definitely shock many people today but which was widely accepted and not criticized in the old days. This film, like a few of his others, does feature such a minstrel segment, so if you can't watch it without suffering a fatal heart attack, then this is one to skip. However, if you do, you may be missing out on a rather entertaining little comedy.Oddly, though, despite Cantor being a nice comic, the parts of the film that made me laugh the most were unintended by the producers. This is because Busby Berkeley designed and directed several huge production numbers that are so over-the-top that they are, in this day and age, funny to watch. The best of these is the opening number. It supposedly is set in a girl's dorm in college but school was never like this!! Seeing all the "Goldwyn Girls" running about in various states of undress as they performed the most complex and expensive dance number is something you won't soon forget! As for the plot, Eddie and his friend Robert Young (who plays, of all things, a Mexican) are on their way to Mexico. However, on the way, Eddie accidentally gets mixed up in a bank robbery and the police think he's part of the gang. So, once in Mexico, he pretends to be the son of a famous bullfighter to avoid being captured. In the end, of course, is the obligatory bull fight and Cantor manages to survive AND get the girl.The whole film is full of surprisingly engaging songs from Cantor and as I said above, his character is so likable you will probably find yourself having a good time--even with its various shortcomings (including a rather poorly filmed bull fight).

I like The Kid From Spain very much, it's certainly one of Eddie Cantor's best films. But I'm still trying to figure out why in the world Sam Goldwyn borrowed Robert Young from MGM and cast him as a Mexican. Why didn't he use someone like Gilbert Roland?Still it's Cantor's show and it begins with Eddie the schnook getting expelled from college after his pal Young puts him in the girl's dormitory where he's discovered by the Dean of Women. To his credit Young owns up to the prank and gets expelled along with Cantor. The two of them decide to go south of the border, but on the way Eddie is forced to drive a gang of bank-robbers across the border.When American cop Robert Emmett O'Connor goes south after the robbers, the fast thinking Young introduces Cantor as a great bullfighter fresh over from Spain. Now Cantor's got to go through with it or else.It's pretty thin stuff, but it's enjoyable and the climax with Cantor in the Corrida fighting a bull is something else. See how he overcomes the bovine challenge. Some of that business was used by Lou Costello in Mexican Hayride.Cantor and Young pair off with Lyda Roberti and Ruth Hall and Ms. Roberti joins Eddie in singing Look What You've Done. The other song Cantor does is unfortunately in black-face and it's What A Perfect Combination. Both songs were recorded by him and sold reasonably well to Depression audiences. The score was written Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby songwriters best known for their Marx Brothers material.I do say though Robert Young was not a convincing Latino. He was painful to watch and I'm sure he felt more ridiculous than anyone else in the film. It's The Kid From Spain's great weakness.Other than that, The Kid From Spain is an enjoyable film and those who want to know about the comedic art of Eddie Cantor can't do better than this film to learn.