''Under A Texas Moon'' is a 1930 American
pre-Code
Pre-Code Hollywood was the brief era in the Cinema of the United States, American film industry between the widespread adoption of sound in film in 1929LaSalle (2002), p. 1. and the enforcement of the Motion Picture Production Code censorshi ...
musical
Western film photographed entirely in
Technicolor. It was based on the novel ''Two-Gun Man'' (from 1929) which was written by
Stewart Edward White
Stewart Edward White (12 March 1873 – September 18, 1946) was an American writer, novelist, and spiritualist. He was a brother of noted mural painter Gilbert White.
Personal life
White was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan, the son of Mary E. ( ...
. It was the second all-color, all-talking feature to be filmed entirely outdoors, as well as being the second Western in color and the first all-talking, all-color Western. The film features one theme song by the title of "Under A Texas Moon."
Plot
Frank Fay, as a Mexican named Don Carlos, rides into a small Texas border settlement on the Fourth of July in the early 1880s. He is accompanied by his two inseparable companions, played by Georgie Stone and George Cooper. The day is being celebrated in the style of a Spanish fiesta. Fay challenges a rough Texan, played by Noah Beery, to a duel, only to find himself invited to undertake the dangerous task of capturing a cattle rustler who has been stealing cattle from the Lazy Y Ranch. He accepts the task on the promise of receiving $7000 in gold if he can return both the thief and the stolen cattle within 10 days.
During the next nine days, Fay spends his time making love to every pretty girl he meets, serenading many of them by singing the theme song to the film while playing his guitar, while his two companions join in the harmonizing. He lies to them all, telling each girl exactly what she wishes to hear. Throughout all this time, he does nothing towards earning his reward. On the 10th day, he captures the cattle rustler and turns up the cattle to everyone's surprise by using a simple method of which no one had thought. He rides back to Mexico with his latest conquest in his arms.
Cast
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Frank Fay as Don Carlos
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Raquel Torres
Raquel Torres (born Paula Marie Osterman or Wilhelmina von Osterman; November 11, 1908 – August 10, 1987) was a Mexican-born American film actress. Her sister was actress Renee Torres.
Early life
Torres was born in Hermosillo to a German em ...
as Raquella
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Myrna Loy as Lolita Romero
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Armida
Armida is the fictional character of a Saracen sorceress, created by the Italian late Renaissance poet Torquato Tasso. Description
In Tasso's epic ''Jerusalem Delivered'' ( it, Gerusalemme liberata, link=no), Rinaldo is a fierce and determ ...
as Dolores
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Noah Beery as Jed Parker
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Georgie Stone
Georgie Robertson Stone is an Australian actress, writer and transgender rights advocate. At the age of 10, Stone was the youngest person to receive hormone blockers in Australia, which set a precedent that eventually changed the law that comp ...
as Pedro
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George Cooper as Philipe
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Charles Sellon
Charles A. Sellon (August 24, 1870 – June 26, 1937) was an American stage and film actor.
Sellon appeared in more than 100 films and stage acts between 1901 and 1935. He played the blind Mr. Muckle in W. C. Fields' comedy ''It's a Gift'' ...
as José Romero
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Jack Curtis as Buck Johnson
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Sam Appel as Pancho Gonzalez
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Tully Marshall as Gus Aldrich
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Mona Maris as Lolita Roberto
Preservation
The film survives as a single nitrate Technicolor print, copied by the
UCLA Film and Television Archive
The UCLA Film & Television Archive is a visual arts organization focused on the preservation, study, and appreciation of film and television, based at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).
Also a nonprofit exhibition venue, the archiv ...
.
Response
New York Latinos led by Gonzalo González protested the film, characterizing it as "anti-Mexican" mainly because Frank Fay portrayed Mexicans as being liars and womanizers. Police brutalized the picketers, killing González. The murder sparked a pan-Latino protest, in which the Latino civil rights activist
Luisa Moreno
Luisa Moreno (August 30, 1907 – November 4, 1992) was a leader in the United States labor movement and a social activist. She unionized workers, led strikes, wrote pamphlets in English and Spanish, and convened the 1939 ''Congreso de Puebl ...
participated. She later told
Bert Corona
Humberto Noé Corona (May 29, 1918 – January 15, 2001) was an American labor and civil rights leader. Throughout his long career, he worked with nearly every major Mexican-American organization, founding or co-founding several. He organized w ...
that the experience "motivated her to work on behalf of unifying the Spanish-speaking communities."
See also
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List of early color feature films
This is a list of early feature-length color films (including primarily black-and-white films that have one or more color sequences) made up to about 1936, when the Technicolor three-strip process firmly established itself as the major-studio fa ...
References
External links
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1930 films
Films based on American novels
1930s color films
Films based on Western (genre) novels
Films set in the 1880s
Films set in Texas
1930s English-language films
Films directed by Michael Curtiz
1930s Western (genre) musical films
American Western (genre) musical films
Early color films
1930s American films
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