Filed under: Reviews | Tags: 1940, leslie goodwins, mexican spitfire out west
Director: Leslie Goodwins
In Mexican Spitfire, accomplished vaudeville star Leon Errol was given second billing to Lupe Velez and a lion’s share of the screentime—given the dual role of Uncle Matt and Lord Epping, Errol’s performance was almost solely responsible for driving the plot forward. If Mexican Spitfire Out West is largely a retread of its predecessor, it doesn’t match up due to how greatly it loses sight of its other players in the process of awarding even more screentime to Errol. Again, Uncle Matt takes the task of impersonating Lord Epping while Dennis (Donald Woods) tries to secure a business deal with the real mogul. Meanwhile, Carmelita (Lupe Velez) pursues a divorce to get more attention from her husband. Velez had already been short-shrifted in her own picture with the previous film, and that is more of a glaring problem in this installment—for a series that is named after her hot-tempered character, she is not given any memorable lines, nor is she costumed as well or filmed as beautifully as she was in the earlier films in the series. Errol’s hijinx are fairly amusing, but already tired at this point, and the film’s misunderstandings aren’t quite as clever or as satisfying as they need to be to sustain the comedic drive of the picture.
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