In Old Arizona, the "100% all-talking Fox Movietone Feature," is bad. It's of note solely because it was the first American film to use location sound—the sound was actually shot outdoors—as well as the first all-talking sound-on-film feature (instead of having the soundtrack recorded seperately). But you don't need to watch it to know that: I've told you, and now you can drop that tidbit in conversation somewhere, without having to endure this wretched talkie. And it is talky: the filmmakers were breaking new ground with their use of sound, and they took every opportunity to demonstrate their new toy. The characters stride into the frame and stand facing us, their eyes turned toward each other, and they talk, and talk, and talk. They prattle on about how much they love ham 'n' eggs, and we get a 15-second closeup of sizzling ham 'n' eggs, because hey! this is the first time filmgoers could hear actual ham 'n' eggs actually sizzling.

Warner Baxter, playing Conrado Sebastian Rodrigo Don Juan Chicuello (better known as the Cisco Kid), won Best Actor at the second Oscars. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. This is, hands down, the biggest flub in the entire long, storied history of Oscar bungles and embarrassments. He was up against such actors as Chester Morris in Alibi and George Bancroft in Thunderbolt, two passable performances that in other years I would never trumpet as deserving of Oscar. But both were Alfred Lunt, Lynne Fontanne, and Sarah Bernhardt rolled in one, compared to the embarrassing, wretched performance Baxter gives. Of course, this was the year for honoring lousy performances: Mary Pickford famously "won" Best Actress for Coquette at the same ceremony. Had I never seen the other nominees, I would still know that Baxter did not deserve his award. Had I never seen another film in my entire life, I would probably know the same thing.

He's not even the worst actor in the film—that honor goes to Dorothy Burgess as the "fiery" Tonia Maria, the Kid's cheating girlfriend. She's playing a horribly offensive caricature of what I suppose is meant to be sexy Latina swagger. She walks with a hip-swaying, arms-akimbo strut; most of her dialog is about how beautiful she is, delivered in a cartoonish accent. She shrieks and rolls her eyes as she and her costars huddle around the flower arrangement that's concealing the microphone. She's cheating on him with Sergeant Mickey Dunn (Edmund Lowe), a cocky, glad-handing soldier assigned to capture the Cisco Kid. He delivers nearly all of his lines with a big smile and a chuckle and ends them all with "geez." However, he does have the dubious distinction of giving the best performance in the film, even if he's not all that good either.

This is nominally a Western, and it does indeed use location sound, but the practical difficulties of shooting outside with the bulky, sound-proofed camera kept the film mostly indoors. There are some scenes that take place outdoors, but many of them, oddly enough, are silent, or nearly so. You can tell the limitations of the early microphones when, say, the Cisco Kid gallops past the camera and we hear the horse's hooves only in the 15 or so feet immediately in front of the camera; after that, it's silent. Most of the long shots, too, are silent. If it appears that I'm being too hard on this film, one doesn't have to look very far to see far superior films, both sound and silent, released around the same time. The limitations caused by technological advances aren't an excuse for things like the frequently distracting cutting, such as violations of the 180 degree rule and of the 30 degree rule, the latter mostly awkward cuts between long and medium shots. Some directors incorporate violations of these guidelines as a stylistic touch, but I see no evidence of that here.

In Old Arizona was nominated for five Oscars, but only Baxter won. The other nominations were Picture, Cinematography (Arthur Edeson), Director (Cummings, who had finished the film after Walsh was injured in a freak car accident), and Writing (Tom Barry).

—February 17, 2006