Oh Pancho, Oh Cisco-Cesar Romero’s “Romance Of The Rio Grande” (1941)-A Film Review 

DVD Review

By Bart Webber

Romance Of The Rio Grande, starring Cesar Romero, 1941

Those of us who came of age in the black and white television days of the 1950s had all kinds of Westerns to fill out our Saturday mornings (and occasionally some early weekday evenings) from The Lone Ranger and his faithful companion Tonto to Roy Rogers and Dale Evans to Gene Autry to Hop-along Cassidy and to the characters the Cisco Kid and his faithful companion who in the television series got dubbed Pancho in the film under review, Romance of the Rio Grande. And we loved what we say, loved that “learned” whatever we learned about the Old West from these episodes where good was white and bad was black. Of course in the 1950s with the homogenization of everything cultural the guy who played Cisco was an Irish kid who grew up in the Bronx and Pancho was a Croatian from Chicago if I recall. At least in the film under review the main character has a Spanish surname, Cesar Romero.   

Aside from that authentic touch the story line here is something that might have passed muster in a 1950s television production (except maybe the romance part would be more muted). Don Fernando, a large ranchero owner in Arizona, who is ailing and not long for this world in a fit of hubris decided to cut out his no good nephew from grabbing the land grant when decided to send for his grandson who was in Spain as a result of old Don Fernando’s banishing his mother for marrying somebody not selected by him. Things start going awry once this grandson Don Carlos hits Estados Unidos and heads out to Arizona only to be bushwhacked by agents of that mal hombre nephew. (By the way did anybody notice that old Don Fernando’s ranchero was in Arizona. For those not in the know back in Cisco’s time Arizona was part of Mexico which was “ceded” to the U.S. after the Mexican War. And you wonder why immigrants from Mexico coming over the southern border think they are “going home.” Make of that what you will.)    

Those mal hombres leave Don Carlos for dead when Cisco and his pal find him, get him to shelter and get him nursed back to health. What Cisco, nothing but a wise guy outlaw living on the fringes of society, noticed was this Don Carlos and he could be twins. So in order to grab whatever he could out of the situation he decided to assume Don Carlos’ identity and see what played out. Of course that nephew had figured Don Carlos was dead and so was surprised, very surprised when Cisco showed up to get his due. That due included marriage to the old Don’s ward who actually was in cahoots with that no good nephew. Cisco, ever the romantic couldn’t decide between her and the old Don’s goddaughter with a nice singing voice.

If the nephew had anything to say about it though Cisco would be six feet under and not romancing the senoritas. Things came to a head when that nephew found out that Cisco had been nothing but an imposter. He had two problems to get rid of then since while all of this was going on the old Don passed on leaving the estate up to Don Carlos. Needless to say that mal hombre nephew got the short end of the stick when that beautiful ward put a couple of slugs in him where it hurt when she tried to back out of the deal they had and he went crazy. She took a couple of slugs herself as the dying nephew got a couple of rounds off. Don Carlos got the ranchero and that beautiful godchild. Cisco and his pal got the road which is where they figured they belonged anyway. See black and white like I said.