HI, GAUCHO! (1935)

In the Argentine, two wealthy families, the Bolarios and the Del Campos, are feuding over sales of horses to Americans. The Del Campo daughter Inez (Steffi Duna) is about to be given unwillingly, in a marriage arranged by her mother, to Don Salvador, an elderly man whom the Del Campos have never met. One afternoon, Inez is returning to her hometown and decides to have a siesta in her carriage, right in the middle of the road. The handsome Lucio (John Carroll) and his gang of gauchos come down the road to find it blocked by Inez's carriage. When the snooty Inez refuses to move, Lucio has his men pick the carriage up and move it to the side of the road, and parade on while singing their gaucho songs, which infuriates Inez. Of course, this is their "meet cute" moment, and soon they are in love, despite the fact that Lucio is the Bolario son—they even get a Romeo and Juliet moment when Lucio serenades Inez from below her balcony. Meanwhile, on the road into town, Don Salvador is kidnapped by the infamous outlaw Escurra; finding out about his engagement and discovering that the marriage will make Don Salvador the richest man in the land, Escurra takes Don Salvador's place and presents himself at the Del Campo estate. Lucio playfully snatches Inez away from her home, but to his horror, realizes it's actually her mother he has taken. She charges him with kidnapping and he goes on the run, but at a party celebrating Inez's coming marriage, this Romeo and Juliet story winds up with a happy ending, as Escurra is unmasked, Inez gets Lucio, and the two families reconcile.

Though I've written reviews for this blog for 18 years, it's only recently that I've realized a truth about some of these movies, such as this one. For lack of a better word, I’ll call them "multitask" movies. The movies themselves don't engage in multitasking (any more than any movie can be doing several things at once to or for a viewer), but I can multitask while watching them. These aren't necessarily bad movies, but they don't really need my full attention. I'm not the kind of person who puts on a movie, then goes out to the kitchen or does laundry—I stay on the couch, watch the movie and take notes, and if I have to leave the room, I pause the film. But during this one, I realized halfway through that I had the laptop open and was checking Facebook and looking at the weather forecast and searching for a pesto recipe online. I never got so involved with my other tasks that I lost the thread of the movie, but I also was obviously not fully engaged with the movie, despite the presence of John Carroll, one of my B-movie favorites. I put away the laptop, backed up the movie about ten minutes to make sure I hadn't missed anything (I hadn't), and gave all of my attention to Hi, Gaucho. Fifteen minutes later, the laptop was open and I was skimming information about the movie and the cast on IMDb.

And I guess that's OK. Most of these multitask movies aren't bad or boring, but they are predictably plotted and routinely acted, and straying a bit from the TV screen doesn't seem to hurt my experience of the movie. I followed the story, laughed at the humor, and the notes I'd taken seemed complete. Carroll, in his first starring role, is burdened by having to speak in an exaggerated Argentine accent, along with most of the rest of the cast, and I had a difficult time in the beginning understanding the dialogue. His leading lady, Steffi Duna, is Hungarian and was married to Carroll in real life—though not for long. She, like the other actors, is OK, not great but not terrible. Everything about this movie—story, acting, sets, music (the gauchos love to sing)—is completely average, which may be why I could multitask a bit while watching. If it was very good, I'd be riveted; if it was bad, I'd be writing notes about its badness and paying attention to see if it got better or worse; if it was awful, I'd have quit watching. I knew what I was getting into when I sat down to watch: an RKO B-film with an actor I like and a cast of people largely unknown to me. (Given the whimsical title, I was kind of expecting something funnier or campier, but no.) I expected a so-so film and I got one. If you're looking for a so-so film that will let you surf the web or think about your next meal on occasion, but that you won’t feel bad about watching, this is for you. [TCM]