Gypsy Wildcat 1944 Director: Roy William Neill

Writers: James P. Hogan, Gene Lewis (screenplay)

Stars: Maria Montez, Jon Hall, Peter Coe, Nigel Bruce, Leo Carrillo, Gale Sondergaard, Douglass Dumbrille

After the success of Arabian Nights Universal requested a series of films starring Mari Montez, Jon Hall and Sabu. It was followed by White Savage and Cobra Woman.

Roy William Neill replaced James Hogan as the Film Director on this one – he later did the Basil Rathbone Sherlock Holmes films of the time. Filming started October 1943.

Peter Coe played Tonio  – he was a former swimming champion, Acquacade performer and stage actor. He later claimed that he and Montez had an affair. Whether that was true or not we will never know.

I was not at all familiar with the Actor Peter Coe but looking him up he was married eight times. This was only his third film in fact but a year or two after this he was in Rocky Mountain which starred Errol Flynn.

Maria Montez and Jon Hall were again exotically paired in Gyspy Wildcat, a romantic adventure with a mediaeval setting in which a group of innocent gypsies find themselves imprisoned in the bowels of wicked Baron Douglass Dumbrille’s castle, charged with the murder of Count Orso. It’s Dumbille who is really the villain and hero Jon Hall, the King’s messenger knows it having witnessed  the murder of the Count by  the Baron’s henchmen. 

Gypsy dancer Maria Montez was top billed at the Count’s daughter who Dumbrilles wishes to marry, as she is the heiress to a fortune but unfortunately from his point of view – but not ours – she is in love with Jon Hall.

This was a Technicolor Production and released in  1944 so not really a Fifties film – although the stars went on to appear into the next decade