Holiday in Mexico (1946)

Like many of Joe Pasternak's MGM musicals of the era, Holiday In Mexico offers something for almost everyone. For the teens, there's a cute love story with youngsters Jane Powell and Roddy McDowall. For the grownups, there's Jane's daddy, Walter Pidgeon, in love with luscious songbird Ilona Massey. For those who like the classics, Jane, Ilona, and pianist Jose Iturbi perform a good selection (with Iturbi demonstrating his boogie-woogie skills, as well). Then there's the orchestra of Xavier Cugat to offer some Latin American beats. They're sorely needed, because there's very little Latin flavor in the picture.Yes, Holiday in Mexico seems to offer something for everyone. Everyone, that is, except those expecting a holiday in Mexico. True, it takes place in Mexico, but the picture's setting is the US Embassy (Pidgeon plays the Ambassador), and while, understandably, there are a lot of international accents and cultures represented (French, English, Spanish, Russian, Hungarian), it's also a little disappointing. I wanted Mexican settings. Mexican costumes. Mexican performers. Mexican anything. Likewise, most of the music is decidedly non-Mexican (Rachmaninoff, Victor Herbert, Shubert, etc.) It's weird.So what are the pluses? Well, the cast. If you don't like Jane Powell or Walter Pidgeon, you will not like the film, since one or the other, or both, are in almost every scene. I do happen to like Miss Powell, and Mr. Pidgeon, and the rest of the cast (though Roddy McDowall is not at his best. Seems to be in an awkward phase of puberty, or something). The story is, to be charitable, weak, but the actors do what they can with it. It all goes on for 128 minutes, it's in gorgeous Technicolor, and the costumes and sets, the orchestrations and vocal arrangements, are all wonderful. The singers and musicians, from Powell on down, are first rate.

This is story of Walter Pidgeon the father, Jane Powell the daughter, and Roddy Mcdowall the boy after Jane. I love all three actors, but something is missing from this film. All three players take a Holiday in Mexico. Roddy Mcdowall is excellent and steals the film. He loves Jane Powell, but Jane is more interested in Jose Iturbi. Walter Pidgeon finds an old love from his past which causes Jane to be jealous. Every scene Roddy has is a delight, but many of the other scenes drag on too long. Walter and Jose talk about her crush and work out a plan to cure her crush. Walter has a real good scene with Jane in the end to help her get over her embarrassment for loving such an older man.

This is basically a bad movie, one in which the sum of the parts is definitely less than the parts themselves. It throws together without ever fusing them into one coherent whole 1) José Iturbi, who plays a Hollywood version of Rachmaninoff's Second Concerto for piano and Chopin's Military Polonaise, 2) Xavier Cougat and his orchestra doing what they did, 3) Ilona Massey being very beautiful and singing into the bargain, and 4) Jane Powell. Powell evidently couldn't act - though this script doesn't really provide any opportunity to do so - but she could sing light classical music, and in this movie she was given music to sing that really showed off her voice (Bizet's Les filles de Cadiz, Herbert's Italian Street Song, etc.). It serves as something of an explanation of what went wrong subsequently, when MGM and then RKO put Powell into movies where she was asked to sing the popular music of the era. She never sounded particularly at ease with the popular music, and never did a particularly good job of singing it. Since she wasn't an actress, when what she was singing wasn't interesting, there was nothing to attract audiences. But this movie shows that, had Hollywood continued to give her music appropriate to her voice, her later movies might not have been so forgettable. As it is, this movie is like a vaudeville show: it presents a series of well-done musical numbers connected, feebly, by a script that is best forgotten. If you like Iturbi, or Massey, or Powell, you'll like their numbers. (Did anyone really like Xavier Cougat?) You can go make popcorn during the rest of it and not miss anything.

My husband and I had the pleasure of attending Jose Iturbi's concerts in San Antonio and Austin, Texas; also, my husband was fortunate to hear sister Ampara Iturbi while stationed on Trinidad during WWII, so I always rewatch these old films with great nostalgia. As an amateur pianist I did so enjoy all the music in this film. Calypso, boogie woogie, and classical...something for anyone who enjoys music. Yes, the plots of these old movies were always simplistic, but they make such good clean time-passers, particularly amid the sleaze presented to us on TV and in film today. I am so glad they have been preserved and that we have channels devoted to them. They take me back to happy times.