Lupe Velez Movies

In this comedy, a pair of ex-Marines team up and get involved in a nightclub.Trouble ensues when they both fall in love with a feisty woman and begin fighting over her. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

In this western, a lovely Mexican woman falls in love with the gringo pilot whose plane crashed nearby. Unfortunately, her father's neighbor, a powerful rancher is in love with her. He orders the execution of the happless Yankee aviator. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

MGM had hopes of turning Metropolitan opera singer Lawrence Tibbett into a movie star, but Cuban Love Song brought this two-year project to an end. Tibbett plays a cocky marine stationed in Havana, who devotes his attention to voluptuous Cuban peanut vendor Lupe Velez. He serenades her with "The Peanut Song" several times in the course of the film, and Velez falls madly in love. But Tibbett is the "love 'em and leave 'em" type, and when World War One breaks out he drops Velez like a hot tamale and heads for Europe. Ten years pass: Tibbett returns to Cuba, only to discover that Velez has died...and then he meets a cute 9-year-old "orphan" boy whose favorite tune is "The Peanut Song". Cuban Love Song is highlighted by an uproariously graphic "castor oil" gag involving supporting actor Jimmy Durante. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Cecil B. DeMille's third remake of his debut film, this was the first sound version of Edwin Milton Royle's stage western melodrama. The story centers on a British captain who heads into the American West after taking the blame for his embezzling, blue-blooded cousin to protect the reputation of his cousin's wife, whom the captain secretly loves. There he rescues a beautiful Indian woman from a lustful, wicked cattle rustler. Later he and the woman marry and have a baby. To prove her love for her new spouse, the Indian murders the cattle rustler. More trouble brews when the captain's true love comes to tell him that her husband confessed all upon his death bed and that the captain is to the new Earl. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

In this romance, men board "The Love Boat" (no, not the TV boat) and set sail for China with the hope of buying a Chinese bride. The hero disembarks and immediately finds himself in the midst of an auction of women. There he spies a beautiful girl being sold by her father. The hero saves her. She is taken to San Francisco by a friendly elder. In San Francisco, she immediately snubbed by the local elite. Her old guardian sells her to the Chop Suey King. The hero finds her, rescues her and proposes. His socially prominent family is firmly against the match. The day is saved when the girl discovers that she is not really Chinese. She was only raised by a Chinese family after her missionary parents were murdered. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

In this romantic adventure, a feisty young woman (Velez) toys with the affections of a railroad worker (Withers) and a Mountie (Blue). She ends up with Withers and decides to accompany him to the city. Unfortunately, the other workers around her do not want her to go. As the lovers try to flee, Withers kills a man and the Mountie and his pal Rin Tin Tin begin their pursuit. The murderous duo end up shooting a dangerous river rapids and nearly losing their lives. In the end the Mountie lets the lovers go to find their happiness. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

D.W. Griffith's last silent film, The Lady of the Pavements was based on La Paiva, a story by Karl Gustav Vollmoeller. Set in 19th-century Paris, the story concerns the romantic travails of Prussian aristocrat Count Karl von Arnim (played by future "Hopalong Cassidy" star William Boyd). Feeling betrayed by his flirtatious fiancee, Countess Diane des Granges (Jetta Goudal), Karl misanthropically declares that he'd sooner marry a "lady of the pavements" (Hollywoodese for "prostitute"). Hoping to demonstrate to Karl that appearances are deceiving, Diane engages the services of low-born Spanish cabaret entertainer Nanon del Rayon (Lupe Velez), dressing the girl in gorgeous gowns and passing her off as a noblewoman. Karl is smitten by Nanon and proposes marriage, but during their wedding reception Diane spitefully reveals Nanon's true identity as "proof" that Karl wouldn't know a Girl of the Streets if he actually met one. By this time, however, Karl has genuinely fallen in love with Nanon, whereupon Diane's nasty scheme blows up in her face. For a director who was considered a relic and a has-been, D.W. Griffith invests Lady of the Pavements with all sorts of cinematic nuances, including a remarkable multiple-exposure sequence in which William Boyd appears on screen in 13 different guises at once! Completed as a silent, the film was slightly reshot to qualify as a part-talkie, including two musical numbers and a dialogue sequence in which Griffith experimented with "sound modulation" -- another important (and frequently unheralded) innovation from the Father of American Film. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Produced by Cecil B. DeMille, Stand and Deliver was directed by former D.W. Griffith associate Donald Crisp. Set in postwar Greece, the story concerns an expatriate Englishman named Roger Norman (Rod LaRoque), who is bored with civilian life and seeks out thrills. He gets more than he bargained for when he joins the Greek army in search of an elusive bandit named Ghika (Warner Oland). During a raid, Norman and the film's heroine Jania (Lupe Velez) are abducted by Ghika's men and spirited off to the mountains. For a while, Norman's loyalties are torn between the charismatic bandit, who seems to have a genuine beef against the government, and the Army, which has threatened to execute Norman because he punched out a superior officer. But by film's end, Norman has realigned himself with the authorities and captured the bandit, winning the girl in the process. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Douglas Fairbanks' The Gaucho is a curiosity: a traditional Fairbanks actioner with decidedly unsavory, unpleasant and uncharacteristic overtones. For the first time in his career, Fairbanks plays what would have been a villainous role in anyone else's film: An outlaw leader who exploits religion for his own nefarious purposes. As the unofficial leader of Miracle City, Fairbanks laughs aloud as the faithful flock to the shrine of the Madonna: he knows that, once they've left, he can claim the pitiful alms they've left behind. Eventually, however, Fairbanks experiences a religious conversion, thanks in part to the love of a good woman and in great part to a deus-ex-machina appearance by the Madonna Herself (portrayed, unbilled, by Fairbanks' wife Mary Pickford). A subplot involving leprosy and suicide adds to the overall discomforting tone of the film. Despite its lapses in taste, The Gaucho amassed a fortune for Fairbanks, who in 1928 could do no wrong at the box office. Lupe Velez makes her first major film appearance as a lusty mountain girl. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi