Pépé

I really want to write something good about this movie. I can't, though. I only saw it once, and once was more than enough. I was a teenager in Denver, Colorado, when "Pepe" previewed for the first time before an audience. A passel of studio bigwigs showed up at the Centre Theatre that evening, including, I believe, producer and director George Sidney. Cantinflas was a no-show; maybe he knew something.

Did you ever attend a movie where the audience greets it with...dead silence? Not the kind of silence for something cerebral, such as "2001: A Space Odyssey", but the kind of silence that lets you know you are watching a very slow, very long train wreck. And there were roughly 1,200 really silent people that night fifty years ago.

So why did I stick it out through the whole thing? Easy. The cameos. I would start looking for the exit when Edward G. Robinson would appear. Wow! This picture's got to get better now. Wrong. Ditto for Ernie Kovacs, and so on.

Since I viewed the preview print, I believe I saw the full 195 minute version. So what did the studio cut for general release? The only thing I clearly remember departing was a long, misbegotten animated sequence.

In retrospect I feel sorry for George Sidney, director of "The Harvey Girls", the 1948 "Three Musketeers", and "Kiss Me Kate". But the industry had changed a lot by 1960. He did his best to keep up, but "Pepe" has to be a nadir.

Some believe "Pepe" to be excellent family fare. If I compelled a child to watch the whole thing, even the cut general release version, I could probably be arrested for child abuse. You have been warned!

I have fond memories of this movie. I remember along with my brother Alan, begging our parents to take us to the drive-in to see Pepe. I don't know anyone who did not like Cantinflas. With the advent of DVD, I don't know why this title has not surfaced.

Now that I have read some put downs, I need to respond.

This movie 'PEPE' (1960) George Sidney, was just what tens of thousands of other movies is, and are supposed to do, that is to give you an escape.

Give you an escape from everyday blaze. It's funny, musical, short on a fabulous plot but wonderful to watch especially if you like to dream that maybe some small unknown would be able to brush elbows with the stars of the era, and save his ('son' as he says) to boot. What's so bad about that??

I'm sorry "Mario Moreno Reyes" Cantinflas did not get a fair shake from Hollywood he had such potential. In my book this is a must see.

Now any film with as many stars as they gathered together for bit parts as Pepe will automatically get me watching it in any event. There's no way I'd give this a bad review.

But in terms of the film itself, it might well have been oversold back then. Cantinflas got rave notices for his performance as Passepartout in Around the World in 80 Days, but failed to win audiences in the English speaking world. So this time Cantinflas played the title role and Columbia Pictures gathered together just about every star who had a free minute or so to appear in this. When you consider that Around the World in 80 Days was also such an all star extravaganza, did any other performer in history ever command such support?

Not that he didn't deserve it. In Latin America, especially in his native Mexico, Cantinflas was a national icon. I think that it was no accident that all these stars wanted to appear with him, it certainly would boost their market value in the Latin American area to be identified with him.

Seeing this film again 46 years after it first came out and I did see it in the theater back in the day, I was struck with how similar the Pepe character was to Forrest Gump. Tom Hanks who got an Oscar for his performance of someone as guileless as Pepe also during that film ran into as many famous folks as Pepe managed to.

Columbia cheated a little bit by going to Las Vegas for part of the story. This was the height of the Rat Pack era and a whole lot of the cast from Ocean's 11 took time from filming that to do some ring-a-ding walk-ons here.

There are some nice musical numbers. Shirley Jones is in good voice singing the title song. A real treat is Cantinflas, Dan Dailey, and Maurice Chevalier doing a reprise of Mimi. My favorite though is a star that appears only by voice, but Judy Garland's The Faraway Part of Town which is heard over a radio should rank as one of the best songs she ever sang.

Seen almost a half a century later, I'd say Pepe was undeservedly panned by the critics back then and is worth looking at whenever it gets broadcast.

It's really hard to rate this movie. On the one hand, it's a true time capsule of 1960..every mega star is here..including practically the whole rat pack. On the other hand , this is a an extremely corny movie about a man and his donkey.

What is really painful to watch is what the movie does to the Cantinflas persona. In his Mexican movies, he is street smart but with a sentimental side. Sort of a Mexican Little Tramp. In his Mexican movies this persona became more and more sentimental and less street smart as years went by. But nothing can prepare you for this movie. In it, the Cantinflas persona becomes a virtual moron. He is such an ignorant fool it is almost painful to watch.

I remember seeing this movie with my grandmother and mother at the old Radio City theater in Santurce. I was a boy expecting a Cantinflas movie and was surprised to see a movie like this.

Still I have fond memories and I feel that the movie deserves a DVD release. In fact this movie doesn't even show up on AMC or TCM. And its a shame because this movie is an interesting way to go back to 1960.