Latin Lovers (1953)

Why so much hype?

What a waste of my time!!!

One of the worst movies I've ever seen

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

Ricardo Montalban stepped in as last minute substitute for Fernando Lamas for this film Latin Lovers. Originally meant as a follow up for the Fernando Lamas/Lana Turner version of The Merry Widow, the breakup between Lamas and Turner was not amicable. Lana just did not want to emote for the big screen with Lamas any more.One thing Lamas did leave behind was possibly his singing voice. Ricardo had a couple of numbers to sing and he did not sing. If you've seen The Merry Widow or Rose Marie you know that Fernando Lamas did have a strong singing voice. What comes out of Montalban's mouth sounds an awful lot like Fernando Lamas.Lana is a wealthy woman who worries all the time that men are interested in her for her money only. To be rich and have worries like that. She's going out with John Lund who's a bit richer, but he is such a titanic bore.Things do pick up when on a trip to Brazil she meets Montalban who also has a few shekels though the family fortune is really in the hands of his grandfather Louis Calhern. What follows are the usual romantic games people play and is the outcome ever in doubt? Also note in the cast are Jean Hagen as Turner's girl Friday and Archer MacDonald as the nerdy American embassy employee who is giving Turner lessons in Portugese. Sadly MacDonald would be dead in two years and by his own hand.Latin Lovers is a pleasant if not taxing piece of romantic fluff.

Beautiful blonde Lana Turner (as Nora Taylor) worries men may want her because she is worth $37 million dollars. She is engaged to handsome blond John Lund (as Paul Chevron), who is worth $48 million dollars. It sounds like a good match, but Ms. Turner is still worried. When she was poor, a greedy boy stole all her marbles, she tells her analyst. Both Turner and Mr. Lund go to picturesque Brazil, where he plays polo. Turner wears expensive clothes and meets muscle-glistening Ricardo Montalban (as Roberto Santos). They are mutually attracted. Turner decides to hide her $37 million estate from Mr. Montalban, because she (now) thinks men are not interested in marrying beautiful and wealthy women. Honest. This story is as silly as it sounds. However, it is worth watching to see how the crew at MGM could pull out the big guns; in this case, for Turner and Montalban. The production always looks great.***** Latin Lovers (8/12/53) Mervyn LeRoy ~ Lana Turner, Ricardo Montalban, John Lund, Louis Calhern

Shallow time-filler, directed by the estimable Mervyn LeRoy (who must have been a bit embarrassed), this picture-postcard travelogue-cum-romance should have put Ricardo Montalban on the map as a huge matinée idol. Montalban never quite broke the ethnic barrier to become a Valentino-type player in Hollywood, and filmdom certainly missed a prime opportunity. Montalban swaggers and struts and exudes mucho charisma as a horse rancher in Brazil who falls for vacationing heiress Lana Turner. Semi-musical piece of Hollywood factory gloss entertains in its fashion, but you'll be ashamed of yourself in the morning. Turner is so aloof that even Ricardo fails to melt her icy exterior, but the South American flavor is amusingly captured and the picture looks good enough to eat. ** from ****

This one is much more fun than its inevitable detractors might lead you to believe. The cast, including Jean Hagen (who almost stole the show with her unforgettable Lina Lamont in "Singin' in the Rain"), Louis Calhern strutting his elegant stuff as a superannuated Brazilian, a very young Rita Moreno, the handsome John Lund once again playing a stuffy moneybags (as he did a little later in "High Society"), and Dorothy Neumann who gets some of the best of Isobel Lennart's cleverly scripted lines (with digs at psychoanalysts and their patented brand of voodoo.)The story is pure Hollywood dream manufacture but it's so handsomely mounted and lushly photographed by that master of the color cameras, Joseph Ruttenberg, that objecting to it prompts the inevitable question, "Why in the heck did you watch it if you weren't in the mood for something with no relationship whatsoever to the real world?" Lana looks gorgeous and Helen Rose had the inspiration to dress her only in black and white and combinations thereof, contrasting her more than strikingly against the ultra-lush Technicolor trappings. She gets to do an ultra-smooth samba with her co-star Ricardo Montalban, who had the good fortune to step in as a replacement for the originally cast Fernando Lamas, whose real-life romance with Luscious Lana had very publicly come to a rocky impasse. Mervyn LeRoy, who had the distinction of mentoring Lana in the earliest days of her Hollywood ascendancy, directs with that machine-tooled efficiency that a vehicle of this kind must have if it is going to come anywhere near to a suspension of disbelief. With all of the first-class elements that Miss Turner was traditionally surrounded during her days as M-G-M's reigning boxoffice beauty, this is the kind of escapism that is, perhaps lamentably, a thing of a very distant past. When you're feeling benign, this one is fine!