This is the story of the Cisco Kid, a sweet charismatic bandit in the Old West. With a $5000 reward for him, people are always on the lookout to catch him. While stopping at a barber shop for a haircut and a bath, he meets the Army Sergeant Mickey Dunn. Dunn is a womanizer new to the area from New York and he calls himself “Big Casino.” After he unknowingly makes friends with The Kid, they set up a time to get in a drink in the local saloon but first The Kid needs to make a stop.
He loves his lifestyle but his real love is for a woman named Tonia Maria. She lives in a small house with her friend where the bandito visits and hides out as often as possible. As it turns out, she’s been two-timing him while he’s away because she’s very conceited about her looks. He tells her he needs rest and suspects the sergeant knows who he is so he asks her to deliver a message to him. When she goes to the saloon, Dunn plays hard to get and isn’t falling all over her. She gets offended and tells him she the prettiest girl in town and men are always chasing her. They make plans to meet at her house after The Kid has left town to get friendlier. This is where the two conspire to collect on the reward themselves.
The 1929 film is directed by Irving Cummings and Raoul Walsh. It stars Warner Baxter as The Cisco Kid, Edmund Lowe as Sergeant Mickey Dunn, and Dorothy Burgess as Tonia Maria. It’s based on the story by O. Henry named “The Caballero’s Way” which is about the character The Cisco Kid.
This is a perfect example of how classic movies played out for the time period. This western is particularly special because it’s the first movie to be filmed with sound outdoors. There are a few shots with no sound and that’s probably due to early films not having much filler noise or effects. The acting is also very fitting for this era of filmmaking with characters that feel bigger than life. It was nominated for five Academy Awards, including Best Picture but Baxter won for his performance.
The film has been transferred in 1080p AVC and is presented in its original 1.20:1. It’s in black and white from the original 35mm film. The film looks ok for being about 85 years old with some crisp edges and clear images to an extent. Unfortunately, due to the age of the film, there is a lot of contrasting issues and flickering through the film. There are some artifacts for the camera losing focus at times. Also, there are spots on film and a pretty permanent line down the middle of the entire film. Now, I’m not sure if the source material was in such disarray that the final product has these problems or was there not a whole lot put into the restoration.
The audio is mixed in DTS-HD Master Audio 1.0 and it’s good that the mono was maintained. The sound is a little rough around the edges and, like the video, may not have been remastered. It’s very quiet and fluctuates depending on what’s happening on screen. There are even times when there is no sound at all including the lack of score. This is how films were done in early cinema so I’m honestly not surprised how the audio was used. The clearest sound is during the times when people are singing and this film was the start of the idea of the “singing cowboy” was induced into cinema. Again, this is an 85 year-old film and was the first talkie with outdoor sound. It’s understandable that the audio isn’t reference quality so I can’t knock the release for expecting more than what it is.
There are no features on this release which is rather unfortunate with all of the history of the film.
Supplements
Edition Ratings
Unrated- listed as “passed”
Disc Details
Single Blu-ray Disc
Region A
Video Resolution
1080p MPEG-4 AVC
1.2:1 aspect ratio
Audio
English DTS-HD Master Audio 1.0 (in mono)
English 1.0 Dolby Digital (in mono)
Subtitles
English SDH
Spanish
I honestly enjoyed this film because I do enjoy old movies. This is one of those films that are a milestone in the history of cinema and watching it adds to my experience of movies. It’s very obvious that this is the first movie filmed outdoors with sound and that it was released in 1929. The sound is inconsistent but it’s good considering the source material. As far as the video goes, the film has a lot of dirt specs, lines and imperfections that show if there was a restoration, it wasn’t very thorough. Overall, I feel that if you enjoy westerns this is a great place to begin your film education.
