“The Kid from Spain” starring Eddie Cantor (1932)
Eddie Cantor in "The Kid from Spain" (1932)
Alan Warren writes:
Last week I was examining letters written by Welsh Brigader Alwyn Skinner in the Richard Burton archives at Swansea University. I made a note of one passage written on August 14th 1937 when Alwyn was based at Tarazona de la Mancha. He writes the following:
One night this week we saw the film ‘A Kid from Spain” with Eddie Cantor & his scantily dressed girls. The showing was not so good, being in the open air, actually in the Bull Ring. And the talking and singing very indistinct.
The Bull Ring in Tarazona de la Mancha still stands almost unchanged and it is possible to visit it (when open) and to easily imagine this film being shown there.
From various accounts by Brigaders it is known that there were a wide variety of films shown to the Brigaders including such propaganda as Sailors of Kronstadt, Chapaiev, etc (Alvah Bessie mentions in his Spanish Civil War Diaries on November 3rd 1938 in Ripoll watching Our Daily Bread, Confessions of a Collegian,The Private Life of Henry the Eighth and The Brewery).
Out of curiosity today I searched and discovered a clip from The Kid from Spain on YouTube. I was quite shocked and surprised. Here is the link which I urge readers to watch. But please imagine yourself as a full blooded young American or Englishman (or Welshman!) watching this film miles from home. Personally I regard it as an awful form of mental torture watching the clip of, as Alwyn writes these “scantily dressed girls”. The clip is here.
I have long been a fan of old Banjo eyes. His style was somewhat different on stage. It’s impossible to critique yesterdays entertainers with yesterdays recording equipment. Today a person who has no talent at all, can have the magic of today’s equipment change ones opinion through editing.
Just think how Ed would of done with today’s technology.
Denny Farrell
Chicago,IL