Product Details

• Actors: Bebe Daniels, John Boles, Bert Wheeler, Robert Woolsey, Dorothy Lee
• Directors: Luther Reed
• Format: Black & White, Color, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC
• Language: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: RKO
• DVD Release Date: February 16, 2006
• Run Time: 102 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B004082EEI
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #51,686 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Ziegfeld made 'em big. So the film version of his Rio Rita matched the showman's grandeur with a musical that adhered to the source and earned kudos as "one of the best of the [Talkie Era's] Broadway adaptations" (Ethan Mordden, The Hollywood Musical). Bebe Daniels (often a Harold Lloyd co-star) plays Rita, wooed by a singing Texas Ranger (John Boles) who suspects her brother may be a notorious bandito. Meanwhile, a lawyer tries to arrange a divorce for a client who has (oops) two wives. Put the storylines together (somehow), add the wow of two-strip Technicolor for the lengthy finale aboard a pirate river barge, include lavish sets and the guffaws provided by Bert Wheeler and Robert Woolsey (reprising their stage roles) and Rio Rita was ready to - and did - pack audiences in!

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Early RKO hit is also Bebe Daniels' first talkie, August 28, 2010

By 

Annie Van Auken (Planet Earth) - See all my reviews
(TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

Because his epic musical SHOW BOAT was having rewrite and other technical problems in tryouts, Flo Ziegfeld's 1927 production of RIO RITA was the show that inaugurated the magnificent $2.5 million, 1600-seat Ziegfeld Theatre. It ran there until the waning days of December, then was relocated to accomodate a streamlined and ready "Show Boat." Due to the revolutionary nature of that Edna Ferber adaptation, "Rita" is one of the last old-style Follies musicals.

In its cast were Bert Wheeler and Robert Woolsey, two performers who had never worked together before. A "natural" team, Woolsey (the schemer) wore horn rims and was almost never without a stogie. Wheeler (the innocent) was a curly-haired little guy with a fine tenor voice.

Bert and Bob were the only stageshow members to make the transition to film. Following this early talkie's success, RKO offered them a long term contract. In their heyday, Wheeler & Woolsey were as popular as any movie comedians. After 26 features and shorts in 8 years, their cinematic career ended with Robert's death at age 50.

W&W's finest are the early talkies, especially this play adaptation of RIO RITA (1929), their screen debut. OH! OH! CLEOPATRA (1931) may be the boys' best short. They also made some decent comedies with Mark Sandrich before he began directing Astaire & Rogers musicals. Later works suffered from inferior scripts.

Highlight of this frothy musical is a two-strip Technicolor finale. There were originally 16 songs in the 140 minute version of "Rita." This edited re-release is at least 35 minutes shorter. Numbers have been eliminated.

Dorothy Lee (late of Fred Waring's Pennsylvanians) subsequently appeared in almost every W&W movie. Silent era star Bebe Daniels proves here she has a great singing voice, as does her co-star John Boles (Victor Moritz in Universal's FRANKENSTEIN, from '31). Uncredited dancer Robert Livingston was later a cowboy star in the Three Mesquiteers series.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Definitely Not Restored, April 12, 2011

By 

billius j (Ca, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Rio Rita (1929) (DVD)

I am only going to review the print quality; you can read the other review for other useful information. In this case, just as Warner states, this is an unrestored print and it shows. The picture is fuzzy, the sound is awful. It may be partly the way it was originally recorded, but at times the background music annoyingly overwhelms the dialogue. Having an unrestored print with scratchy sound does not help. Worse still, the sound is about 1/2 second or more late to the picture, and out-of-sync sound-to-image is my pet peeve; it pretty much spoils a film for me. I made it all the way through the film, which I actually thought was a pretty interesting movie, particularly the Wheeler and Woolsey stuff, but I can't watch it again. One last thing: during much of the great tap dance scene, Wheeler's legs are cut off, out of the bottom of the frame. Either the director was a moron or this is horrendous print.