Lupe VelezFilmography

Ladies' Day

Actors: Lupe Velez, Eddie Albert, Patsy Kelly, Max Baer, Jerome Cowan

Synopsis: Lupe Velez is "The Mexican Spitfire" in everything but name in the frantic baseball farce Ladies Day. Eddie Albert plays Wacky Waters, star pitcher of the Sox, a league-leading contender for the World Series. Alas, whenever Wacky falls in love, his game suffers-and so do the wives of his Read More

Nana

Redhead from Manhattan

Actors: Lupe Velez, Michael Duane, Tim Ryan, Gerald Mohr, Lillian Yarbo

Synopsis: Substantially, Lupe Velez' Columbia vehicle Redhead from Manhattan was the same as her previous RKO starrers-boisterous, unsubtle, and immensely profitable. La Lupe plays a dual role, as twin sisters named Rita and Elaine. Escaping from a torpedoed ship, Rita shows up in New York, where she takes Read More

Mexican Spitfire Sees a Ghost

Actors: Lupe Velez, Leon Errol, Charles "Buddy" Rogers, Elizabeth Risdon, Donald MacBride

Synopsis: Mexican Spitfire Sees a Ghost looks more like a Columbia two-reel comedy than an RKO feature film. Star Lupe Velez, her conservative ad-man husband (Charles "Buddy" Rogers) and good old Uncle Matt (Leon Errol) find themselves in a supposedly haunted house. Actually the "ghosts" are enemy spies Read More

Mexican Spitfire at Sea

Actors: Lupe Velez, Leon Errol, ZaSu Pitts, Elizabeth Risdon

Synopsis: The first "Mexican Spitfire" entry of 1942, Mexican Spitfire at Sea is set mainly on a Hawaii-bound ocean liner. Combining business with pleasure, vacationing advertsing man Dennis (Charles "Buddy" Rogers) hopes to sign a contract with a wealthy client. Alas, these plans are scotched by the Read More

Mexican Spitfire's Elephant

Actors: Lupe Velez, Walter Reed, Elizabeth Risdon, Lydia Bilbrook

Synopsis: This raucous series entry reunites Lupe Velez as Carmelita (aka "The Mexican Spitfire") and Leon Errol as Uncle Matt, with Walter Reed taking over from Charles "Buddy" Rogers as Carmelita's staid American husband Dennis Lindsay. The titular elephant is a tiny glass figurine, brought back from a Read More

Honolulu Lu

Synopsis: While in Hawaii, Velez begins the film as a risque nightclub act and due to her involvement with a group of sailors becomes a beauty queen. ~ All Movie Guide Read More

Mexican Spitfire's Baby

Actors: Lupe Velez, Leon Errol, Charles "Buddy" Rogers, ZaSu Pitts, Elizabeth Risdon

Synopsis: Even non-fans of RKO Radio's "Mexican Spitfire" series will garner a few healthy laughs from Mexican Spitfire's Baby. This time around, tempetuous Carmelita (Lupe Velez) and her staid American husband Dennis (Charles "Buddy" Rogers) adopt a French war orphan. Imagine Dennis' surprise and Read More

Six Lessons from Madame La Zonca

Actors: Lupe Velez, Leon Errol, Helen Parrish, Charles Lang, William Frawley

Synopsis: To those under the age of 60, it should be noted that the title of this lively Universal filler was inspired by a popular song of 1941. Carrying over their antics from RKO Radio's "Mexican Spitfire" series, Lupe Velez and Leon Errol star respectively as Havana nightclub entertainer Madame La Zonga Read More

Playmates

Actors: John Barrymore, Lupe Velez, Ginny Simms, May Robson

Synopsis: The much-maligned Playmates callously offers the appalling spectacle of a thoroughly dissolute John Barrymore in his final screen performance, but the film isn't quite as bad as it's supposed to be. Barrymore plays himself, a washed-up ham actor up to his ears in debts. When the IRS demands Read More

Mexican Spitfire Out West

Actors: Lupe Velez, Donald Woods, Elizabeth Risdon, Cecil Kellaway

Synopsis: In this third of RKO's "Mexican Spitfire" series, star Lupe Velez doesn't get any further west than Reno, Nevada. Lupe feels that her straightlaced husband (Donald Woods) is neglecting her, and thus seeks a divorce. Reliable old Uncle Matt (Leon Errol) shows up to straighten things out, which Read More

Mexican Spitfire

Actors: Leon Errol, Donald Woods, Linda Hayes, Elizabeth Risdon

Synopsis: The excellent response to RKO Radio's The Girl from Mexico prompted the studio to fashion an entire series based on the misadventures of fiery Latin American entertainer Carmelita (Lupe Velez). The series proper began with 1939's Mexican Spitfire, in which the recent marriage between Carmelita and Read More

The Girl from Mexico

Actors: Lupe Velez, Donald Woods, Leon Errol, Linda Hayes, Donald MacBride

Synopsis: The titular girl is Lupe Velez, a tempestuous cabaret entertainer. Donald Woods plays a staid American ad man who hires her for a New York nightclub. Woods is engaged to be married, but secretly harbors affection for Velez. The volatile Ms. Velez is less subtle, and actively campaigns for the Read More

La Zandunga

Synopsis: The 1937 Spanish-language romantic drama La Zandunga unfolds against the backdrop of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec Fruit Fair, where a young woman named Lupe finds herself being romantically wooed by three men at once: octogenarian Don Atanasio, local boy Ramon, and the sailor Juancho - an out of Read More

High Flyers

Actors: Bert Wheeler, Robert Woolsey, Lupe Velez, Marjorie Lord, Margaret Dumont

Synopsis: Bert Wheeler and Robert Woolsey's final film is far from their best, but at least it never plunges to the depths reached by their earlier Silly Billies and Mummy's Boys. Adapted from an unproduced stage play called The Kangaroos, High Flyers casts Bert and Bob as Jerry Lane and Pierre Potkins Read More

Stardust

Actors: Lupe Velez, Wallace Ford, Ben Lyon, Harry Langdon

Synopsis: This British musical comedy boasts one of the most eclectic casts in film history. Brash Wallace Ford and smoothie Ben Lyon play Jackson and Hartley, a couple of fly-by-night producers hoping to slap together a movie project. They hire showgirl Carla (Lupe Velez) as their leading lady, enhancing Read More

Gypsy Melody

Actors: Lupe Velez, Alfred Rode, Jerry Verno, Fred Duprez, Wyn Weaver

Synopsis: In this romantic comedy, a plucky gypsy travels to London with her lover, a captain of the guard masquerading as a musician. She does not know that he is a fugitive from prison incarcerated for dueling with a high official. In London, the musician organizes a gypsy band that begins playing in a Read More

The Morals of Marcus

Actors: Lupe Velez, Ian Hunter, Adrianne Allen, Noel Madison

Synopsis: In this racy comedy, a harem girl desiring to escape her life, stows away on the boat of a wealthy archaeologist as it sails for England where the young nobleman is slated to receive a large inheritance. He soon finds her, and she pleads with him to let her go on to England where she has a few Read More

Hollywood Party

Actors: Jimmy Durante, Lupe Velez, Charles Butterworth, Polly Moran

Synopsis: Hollywood Party was planned as a lavish, star-studded MGM musical titled Hollywood Revue of 1933. Under the less-than-sterling guidance of "kicked upstairs" MGM producer Harry Rapf, production dragged on interminably, using up the talents of five directors (none of whom were credited) and Read More

Strictly Dynamite

Actors: Jimmy Durante, Lupe Velez, Norman Foster, William Gargan, Marian Nixon

Synopsis: Six writers were involved in the RKO Radio musical comedy Strictly Dynamite; ironically, the plot concerns a radio comedian who's running out of material. Jimmy Durante stars as Maxie Slaight, an airwaves mirthmaker who hires young Nick Montgomery (Norman Foster) as his new gag man. Before he Read More

Hell's Harbor

Palooka

Actors: Jimmy Durante, Lupe Velez, Stuart Erwin, Robert Armstrong, Mary Carlisle

Synopsis: Based on the popular comic strip by Ham Fisher, this fast-paced and funny boxing outing follows the exploits of a boxing manager and the up-and-coming fighter he mentors to. The film is also known as Joe Palooka. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Laughing Boy

Actors: Ramon Novarro, Lupe Velez

Synopsis: There were very few laughs in this phlegmatic film adaptation of the Oliver LaFarge's Pulitzer Prize winning novel Laughing Boy. The title character is a young and impressionable Native American, played by Ramon Novarro. Laughing Boy marries Slim Girl (Lupe Velez), a fellow tribesperson who had Read More

Mr. Broadway

Actors: Ed Sullivan, Johnny Walker, Josephine Dunn

Synopsis: Perhaps hoping to emulate the Hollywood success of his arch-rival Walter Winchell, New York gossip columnist Ed Sullivan starred in the cheaply produced musical hodgepodge Mr. Broadway. As stiff and unsmiling as he'd be on his much-later TV series, Sullivan appears as himself, taking the viewer on Read More

Hot Pepper

Actors: Edmund Lowe, Victor McLaglen, Lupe Velez, El Brendel, Boothe Howard

Synopsis: 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, All Movie Guide Read More

The Broken Wing

Actors: Lupe Velez, Leo Carrillo, Melvyn Douglas, George Barbier, Willard Robertson

Synopsis: 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, All Movie Guide Read More

Kongo

Actors: Walter Huston, Lupe Velez, Conrad Nagel, Virginia Bruce, C. Henry Gordon

Synopsis: A remake of West of Zanibar, this strange, gut-wrenching melodrama set in the African jungles, offers a disturbing portrait of a bitter, crippled and insane megalomaniac who vents his rage via mental torture against all those who get too near. Walter Huston plays the madman who lost the use of his Read More

The Half-Naked Truth

Actors: Lupe Velez, Lee Tracy, Eugene Pallette, Frank Morgan, Bob McKenzie

Synopsis: A broad lampoon of celebrity worship, The Half-Naked Truth stars Lee Tracy as a carnival huckster and Lupe Velez as a "kootch" dancer. Reaching for the moon, Tracy passes Lupe off as an exotic foreign princess--and manages to pull the wool over the eyes of all Manhattan. Now "famous for being Read More

The Squaw Man

Actors: Paul Cavanagh, Lupe Velez, Eleanor Boardman, Roland Young

Synopsis: 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 Read More

Resurrection

Actors: John Boles, Lupe Velez, Nance O'Neil, William Keighley, Rose Tapley

Synopsis: Three years before Sam Goldwyn's overpublicized Anna Sten vehicle We Live Again, Leo Tolstoy's Resurrection was filmed under its original title by Universal (it had previously been filmed no fewer than times, most recently with Dolores Del Rio and Rod LaRocque in 1926). Set in 19th-century Russia Read More

The Cuban Love Song

Actors: Lawrence Tibbett, Lupe Velez, Karen Morley, Hale Hamilton

Synopsis: 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 Read More

Tiger Rose

Actors: Monte Blue, Lupe Velez, H.B. Warner, Tully Marshall

Synopsis: 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 Read More

Hell Harbor

Actors: Lupe Velez, Jean Hersholt, John Holland, Gibson Gowland

Synopsis: Even allowing for the comparative freedom of the pre-Production Code years, 1930's Hell Harbor was pretty strong meat for its time. The story is set on a remote Caribbean island, entirely populated by descendants of Sir Henry Morgan's pirate crew. Morgan's brutish great-great-grandson Henry Morgan Read More

The Storm

Actors: Lupe Velez, Paul Cavanagh, William "Stage" Boyd, Alphonse Ethier, Ernie S. Adams

Synopsis: Previously filmed in 1916 and 1922, Langdon McCormick's theatrical chestnut Men Without Skirts was pulled out of mothballs for a third time in 1930, this time rechristened The Storm. Lupe Velez stars as Nanette, the daughter of French-Canadian smuggler Jacques Farchard (Alphonse Ethier). Concerned Read More

East Is West

Actors: Lupe Velez, Lew Ayres, Edward G. Robinson, Henry Kolker, Mary Forbes

Synopsis: 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 Read More

Lady of the Pavements

Actors: Lupe Velez, Jetta Goudal, Albert Conti, George Fawcett

Synopsis: 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 Read More

Wolf Song

Actors: Gary Cooper, Lupe Velez, Louis Wolheim, Constantine Romanoff, Michael Vavitch

Synopsis: If Hollywood gossip columnists can be believed, Gary Cooper and Lupe Velez were lovers -- and very passionate ones -- when they co-starred in Paramount's Wolf Song. Cooper is cast as Sam Lash, a fur trapper with a randy reputation when it comes to women. But when Sam meets tempestuous Mexican Read More

Where East Is East

Actors: Lon Chaney, Lupe Velez, Lloyd Hughes, Louis Stern

Synopsis: Star Lon Chaney Sr. and director Tod Browning bade adieu to the silent-movie era with 1929's Where East is East. His face covered with hideous scars (convincingly applied with nonflexible collodion), Chaney is cast as weather-beaten animal trapper Tiger Haynes, at present living and working in Read More

Stand and Deliver

Actors: Rod La Rocque, Lupe Velez, Warner Oland

Synopsis: 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 Read More

The Gaucho

Actors: Douglas Fairbanks, Eve Southern, Lupe Velez, Gustav von Seyffertitz, Geraine Greear, Michael Vavitch, Nigel de Brulier

Synopsis: 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 Read More

Sailors Beware

Synopsis: Although this is one of the better early films from Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, they have obviously not yet teamed up and their characterizations have not yet gelled. Stan still exhibits the assertiveness from his previous films, and Ollie is still a rather lecherous heavy. The latest fare for Read More