Watch Holiday in Mexico For Free

Powerful

Load of rubbish!!

I'll tell you why so serious

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

Like many of Joe Pasternak's MGM musicals of the era, Holiday In Mexico offers something for almost everyone. For the teens, there's a cute love story with youngsters Jane Powell and Roddy McDowall. For the grownups, there's Jane's daddy, Walter Pidgeon, in love with luscious songbird Ilona Massey. For those who like the classics, Jane, Ilona, and pianist Jose Iturbi perform a good selection (with Iturbi demonstrating his boogie-woogie skills, as well). Then there's the orchestra of Xavier Cugat to offer some Latin American beats. They're sorely needed, because there's very little Latin flavor in the picture.Yes, Holiday in Mexico seems to offer something for everyone. Everyone, that is, except those expecting a holiday in Mexico. True, it takes place in Mexico, but the picture's setting is the US Embassy (Pidgeon plays the Ambassador), and while, understandably, there are a lot of international accents and cultures represented (French, English, Spanish, Russian, Hungarian), it's also a little disappointing. I wanted Mexican settings. Mexican costumes. Mexican performers. Mexican anything. Likewise, most of the music is decidedly non-Mexican (Rachmaninoff, Victor Herbert, Shubert, etc.) It's weird.So what are the pluses? Well, the cast. If you don't like Jane Powell or Walter Pidgeon, you will not like the film, since one or the other, or both, are in almost every scene. I do happen to like Miss Powell, and Mr. Pidgeon, and the rest of the cast (though Roddy McDowall is not at his best. Seems to be in an awkward phase of puberty, or something). The story is, to be charitable, weak, but the actors do what they can with it. It all goes on for 128 minutes, it's in gorgeous Technicolor, and the costumes and sets, the orchestrations and vocal arrangements, are all wonderful. The singers and musicians, from Powell on down, are first rate.

"Holiday In Mexico" (1946 MGM starring Jane Powell and Walter Pidgeon, and also Illona Massey, Xavier Cugat, and Jose Iturbi was in important movie in 1946, the high water mark year for movie house attendance in the USA (average person went to movies 2x weekly that year), before TV and the Draconian 1948 "Supreme Court Consent Decree" which ended movie studio ownership of movie houses kicked in.The color in this movie.....even on a small TV screen....is unforgettable.So is the acting, the glamor, and the sensuous sexiness of the main actresses, including then 17 year old (playing a 15 year old) Jane Powell, the lead actress always seducing and laying implied sexual claims to her dear old US Ambassador To Mexico Dad, wonderful low key, high class, brilliant actor Walter Pidgeon (see him in "Forbidden Planet" in the 1950's and in "Funny Girl" in the late 1960's....the man never gets old, always plays "Dad" to young adult women).The movies made from the end of WWII to 1948 by MGM are gaudy, colorful, and noisy, always wonderful and edifying, and "Holiday In Mexico" (1946 MGM) is an example.It's a "wow" movie, for sure.Entertainers and musical artists on the MGM payroll of those times included concert pianist Jose Iturbi and band leader, Xaviar Cugat and his trademark Chihuahua dog (that dog gets an ECU closeup and talks human words in this movie!).Wonderful, wonderful music in this movie include Jane Powell singing snippets of Jeanette MacDonald's great 30's movie solo songs, and also wonderful piano concert music with great visuals part of the Jose Iturbi segment.Compare the more famous, but not necessarily better "Date With Judy" (1948 MGM) and "American In Paris" (1951 MGM) movies, which also had Jane Powell ("Judy") and solo wonderful visuals during great piano concert music ("American in Paris")."Holiday In Mexico" is a winner.For me, the appearance of classy lassie Illona Massey from Hungary as the love interest of Walter Pidgeon is a high point of the movie....whatta woman......where are these types now, when guys like me need them (guys like me always needed them!)? Beautiful, intelligent, sexy, available, user-friendly, highly educated and cultured, well dressed, available, not pushy, wonderful in ways I can't count, and nobody can.....an ideal woman in the movies...often tried, never done as well as Illona did it.Plays a Countess in this movie, and acts like one...a good one, a virtuous and worthy one! Teen ager Roddy McDowell plays Jane Powell's neglected boyfriend and is terrible in this movie.He has the Mickey Rooney role, and blows it totally.Well, nobody is perfect and no movie is perfect. Roddy kept this movie from being perfect.The pitch of his forever exasperated voice is higher than Jane Powell's his supposed girlfriend in the movie.Scotty Beckett did a great job with the Mickey Rooney role in "A Date With Judy" (1948 MGM) two years later, with Jane Powell playing the same role as the pushy, saddle shoe wearing "modern teen age woman" with a concert singer's voice (we never saw Jane's great dance abilities until "Royal Wedding" and "Seven Brides For Seven Brothers" after she got old enough to vote!).See "Holiday In Mexico" (1946 MGM). You won't be sorry!----------------- Written by Tex Allen, SAG-AFTRA movie actor and movie history teacher at the college level.....Tex Allen's email address is [email protected] Tes Allen Movie Credits, Biography, and 2012 photos at WWW.IMDb.Me/TexAllen. See other Tex Allen written movie reviews....almost 100 titles.... at: "http://imdb.com/user/ur15279309/comments"

HOLIDAY IN Mexico is filmed in bright and lush MGM Technicolor, but looks as though the filming never strayed far from the Culver City lot. It's the trite story of a teen-ager (JANE POWELL) with a crush on a much older man (JOSE ITURBI), and having frequent heart-to-heart talks with her sophisticated father (WALTER PIDGEON).The first half of the film at least gets away from the trite plotting with a bunch of musical numbers that are attractively staged and presented in the way MGM always managed to do. Iturbi, ILONA MASSEY and others get a chance to shine. But the second half spends too much time straightening out the problems of RODDY McDOWALL and Jane, as they deal with the central problem--Jane's crush on Iturbi which has to be cured before the final reel.It's a chore sitting through some of the syrupy scenes between Jane and Walter Pidgeon, but at least there's a good song for the finale--Schubert's "Ave Maria" which Powell sings beautifully. Didn't Deanna Durbin's IT'S A DATE wind up with the same Schubert song?Pidgeon shows a good flair for comedy in some of his scenes, but none of the film seems to have an air of reality about it. You watch actors go through their paces and that's it.It's strictly fluff for fans of Powell and Pidgeon, nothing more, saved by a few choice musical numbers, and the running time is too long.

If you have an hour and a half to kill and enjoy Jane Powell's singing and Walter Pidgeon's dashing good looks, this beats the heck out of watching this week's third installment of Dateline NBC. Seriously, the music is very good, the comedy is fast, and the sweetness is easy to take. Totally forgettable fluff, but an enjoyable way to pass time.