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Talent agent Dennis Lindsay (Donald Woods), who is only days away from
his marriage to posh Elizabeth (Linda Hayes), is sent down to Mexico to
find a singer, whom he finds in Carmelita Fuentes (Lupe Velez), an
entertainer in a small hotel in the middle of nowhere. Dennis and
Carmelita don't get along at all of course, part due to her hot temper,
part due to his lack of any temper at all, but she has exactly the quality
he ha been looking for, so he takes her with him to New York, where he
offers her abode in his apartment - much to the dismay of his fiancée of
course. Other than that though, he fails to look after Carmelita properly,
much to her dismay, so she hooks up with his uncle Matthew (Leon Errol) -
with whom she has a night on the town, and thus she loses her voice and
messes up the audition the very next day. The same day though, behind
Dennis's back, she scores a job for herself as a nightclub singer, and
uncle Matthew, who has long sensed that Dennis and Carmelita are really in
love, sees to it that Dennis sees her there. To make Dennis properly
jealous, Carmelita pretends to leave the club with one of his clients,
Romano (Edward Raquello), then on the day of Dennis's wedding rehearsal,
she calls Dennis from Romano's apartment (where she's merely for a
photoshoot), getting Dennis so jealous that he leaves from the rehearsal
to get her back - and in the end, Dennis does get married, but to
Carmelita, not to Elizabeth. Let me start with the positive
aspects of this film: Hot-tempered Lupe Velez is a likeable and unusual
leading lady. And she and Leon Errol have just the right chemistry to
carry the film. On the other hand, there is leading man Donald Woods, who
is so uncharismatic one can't help but wondering why she wouldn't choose
Errol over him - and with this remark we have already arrived at the main
problem of this movie: There is no narrative reason for Carmelita and
Dennis to fall in love, it's quite simply not set up, they seem to do it
simply because the formula demands it. There are also no narrative reasons
for quite a few other things, and all too often, this film seems to fall
apart - if it wasn't of course for Lupe Velez and Leon Errol. One just
wishes they were in a better movie ...
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