Sadly Over-hyped

As Good As It Gets

Admirable film.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

The Gay Caballero is none other than O'Henry's famous Robin Hood of the west, the Cisco Kid. Cesar Romero is playing the Cisco Kid here and once again he and his faithful companion Gordito are there to help a lady in distress. In this case the lady is Sheila Ryan come here from the United Kingdom with her father C. Montague Shaw to buy the ranch of Janet Beecher which is in great debt.But Beecher is a proud woman and she ain't giving the ranch up even if it means killing and robbing Shaw and Ryan.What brings Romero and sidekick Chris-Pin Martin to the situation is hearing rumors that he's dead and later finding a grave to attest to that. It was Edmund MacDonald, Beecher's foreman who 'killed' the Cisco Kid. Naturally Cisco himself is going to stick around to see who would kill him and why.The Gay Caballero is enjoyable cinema made possible by the personality of Cesar Romero as the Cisco Kid.

It's obvious when watching this film that it was made by Fox's B-movie unit, as the movie is quite brief (under an hour) and abounds with logical errors. However, despite these leaps of logic, the film is watchable thanks to the nice performance by Cesar Romero.The film begins with Cisco finding a woman pining at a grave marked "Cisco Kid". Obviously it's not him but there is a guy out there who claimed to have killed this Robin Hood of the Southwest. Soon, and out of the blue, a wagon with two settlers is attacked and Cisco and his sidekick, Gordito, spring into action. The old man and his pretty young daughter were apparently on their way to buy some land when they were set upon by bandits. Once rescued, they continued on their way with their two new friends. However, once they arrive at the ranch where they are to finish the land deal, it's pretty obvious to anyone with a brain (meaning no one in the film) that the old lady at the ranch is a crook--especially when the three guys who tried to rob the old man and girl are there--yet they STILL don't get that the lady is a crook!!! There's more to the film than this and plenty of action. None of it is especially taxing to your brain or attention span and it's a brisk and moderately likable programmer.

Straying far from the original character of O. Henry's Cisco Kid, this movie has Cesar Romero portraying the title character as more of a rogue bandido/Robin Hood with a touch of whimsy. Blame the scriptwriters for that, since it was only the name "Cisco Kid" that appealed to them, as they turned the originally Anglo Kid into a Mexican.Having been in films for a number of years, Cesar Romero might have thought that his assignment to B movies to be a demotion, but after all, contract players had to do what they were told. He would soon be playing opposite 20th Century-Fox's biggest female stars, Betty Grable and Alice Faye, in those Technicolor extravaganzas.The remainder of the cast is comprised of veteran character actors, plus Sheila Ryan (another 20th contract player) as "the girl" (you know there always has to be a "girl"). You also get to see an early Robert Sterling, as the boy who gets the girl.Since the film runs only about an hour, one can't expect too much substance. There are the typical Western plot elements—greedy landowner, robbery, holdups, guys in jail—all the goodies crammed in to make the formula work. Nevertheless, there are worse ways to spend an hour.

This, the fourth episode in Twentieth-Century-Fox's B series of the Cisco Kid, has Cesar Romero pretending to be dead, aided by a grave and a man who claim to have killed the Kid. The story is well done -- Fox's B unit was probably the best among the majors at this period -- and Edward Cronjager's usual excellent cinematography -- lots of process shots and a tremendous number of basic two-shots -- is handsome without being intrusive.I am mildly surprised that the Fox Movie Channel is running these amusing little second features so freely -- an attempt by them to run some Charlie Chan movies a couple of years ago raised a lot of fuss about stereotypes: one would not, of course, wish to show movies that implied that an ethnic Chinese man would automatically be the smartest person in the room, or that his U.S.-born children would act like American kids.