Fox’s Oscar-nominated In Old Arizona is considered to be one of the first Westerns of the sound era to be partly shot outdoors.
Raoul Walsh was supposed to play the saga’s central figure, the outlaw hero Cisco Kid, and to helm the picture. However, on the way back from a location in Utah, a jackrabbit jumped through the windshield of his car, causing a bad accident that resulted in permanent blindness in the right eye.
When Walsh was unable to finish the film, Fox replaced him with the industrious helmer Irving Cummings and cast the lead with Warner Baxter.
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Theatrical release poster
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Based on a story by O. Henry, the film boasts some primitive gunfights and cattle roundups. But for an outdoor picture, at least one third of the scenes take place indoors. Chase scenes were dropped in the editing room as a result of the poor quality of sound; the recording equipment had to be kept in stationary soundproof booth. Even so, a number of sequences were shot in California’s Mojave Desert and the Zion National Park.
Warner Baxter, a good-looking actor with a pleasant voice who began his career in the silent era, gives an endearing performance that surprisingly won him the Oscar and made him a star.
Today, however, he’s much better remembered for playing the sick producer in the Warner musical, 42nd Street (1933).
Recycling:
The character of the Cisco Kid has outlived the first feature, first in a series of B-Westerns starring Warner Baxter, Cesar Romero, and Gilbert Roland, and then as a TV series featuring Duncan Renaldo.
In Arizona, the bandit Cisco Kid robs a stagecoach. Word of this deed reaches to Sergeant Micky Dunn, who is tasked by his superior to bring in the Cisco Kid dead or alive, with a $5,000 reward promised. They meet in a barber shop, though Dunn is unaware of the Cisco Kid’s true identity and passes him off as a friendly civilian.
The Cisco Kid dates Tonia Maria, who he loves her, but she has various affairs, including one with Dunn. They express their love while the Cisco Kid secretly watches and listens nearby.
In a secret letter, Maria informs Dunn about the whereabouts of the Cisco Kid. However, the Cisco Kid replaces this with a fake letter “from Maria” which he has penned himself. His letter says he will be dressed up in Maria’s clothes in order to disguise himself from Dunn, while Maria is actually in the Cisco Kid’s clothes riding away.
Dunn receives this fake letter, and when the Cisco Kid leaves her house, Dunn shoots Maria, believing her to be the Cisco Kid in disguise. The Cisco Kid laments that Maria’s flirting is over, and she can finally settle down, before making his escape.
Queer subtext
In later years, when younger viewers rediscovered the pre-Code movie, they singled out the unintentional gay elements of the tale, with Warner Baxter chooses women’s clothes as disguise.
Gay spectators detect erotic tension between the two handsome men, looking closely at each other.
Cast
Warner Baxter as the Cisco Kid
Edmund Lowe as Sergeant Mickey Dunn
Dorothy Burgess as Tonia Maria
Credits:
Co-directed by Irving Cummings and Raoul Walsh
Written by Tom Barry
Produced by Winfield Sheehan
Cinematography Arthur Edeson
Alfred Hansen
Edited by Louis R. Loeffler
Distributed by Fox Film Corporation
Release dates:
Premiere: December 25, 1928; wide release: January 20, 1929
Running time: 95 minutes
Box office $1.3 million
Oscar Nominations: 5
Best Picture, produced by Winfield Sheehan
Director: Irving Cummings
Writing Achievement: Tom Barry
Actor: Warner Baxter
Cinematography: Arthur Edeson
Oscar Awards: 1
Actor
Oscar Context
The Best Picture (or Production, as it was then called) went to the tedious MGM musical, “The Broadway Melody.” The other nominees were: MGM’s musical “The Hollywood Revue of 1929,” the crime drama “Alibi,” and Ernst Lubitsch historical piece, “The Patriot,” starring Emil Jannings.
