text: German emigree and uber-hambone actor Paul Muni who never saw a scene he didn't want to chew up goes "blackface" to play a humble Mexican immigrant living in Los Angeles and working his way up in the world. If this creaky vehicle reminds anyone of Al Pacino's minstrel performance as an uncultured Cuban in the remake of SCARFACE, don't be too surprised. The characters are quite similar, and both get wildly pop-eyed when the script calls for it. Hispanics everywhere should be greatly offended by Muni's over-the-top performance as this giddy Mexican living the American dream, consequences be damned. I guess Benicio DelToro's grandfather wasn't available. A young, bleached-blonde Bette Davis plays one of Muni's love interests; she eventually goes insane for love of Mr. Meh-hee-can Muni. An absolute hoot, Davis is the sole reason to watch this racially offensive claptrap. There is an absolutely delirious near the end when Muni asks the gal of his dreams to marry him -- a white gal of breeding with one of those stilted, stage-like '30s accents that Hollywood loved so much -- and she calls him a savage and a brute, of "a different tribe." Muni immediately transforms into Mr. Hyde and chases her to an untimely death. In the final scene, a repentant Muni tells his sober-faced priest that he is going back to his own people, his own kind. End of movie. Finis. That's all she wrote. Muni was said to have hired a gen-oo-ine Mexican as a chauffeur in order to study this exotic creature's speech pattern and physical habits. Yowza!