Alma Cigana

When you consider what Eisenstein would have done if he'd had the opportunity to work in Technicolor one can only savour the irony that Roy William Neill was able to avail himself of that miracle of technology - and had use of a camera dolly which facilitated some astonishingly mobile camerawork at a time when the Technicolor cameras still weighed a ton - on an obvious piece of hack work.

Universal at that time were investing heavily in Technicolor to dress up their otherwise cheap productions and this film's leading men Jon Hall and Peter Coe are so bland they seem to have been deliberately chosen to divert attention from the fact that their leading lady's sole talent was for photographing well in Technicolor (although she certainly looks impressive in puffed sleeves and red boots), while the least funny element is naturally the comic relief of Leo Carrillo and Curt Bois. But the presence of Gale Sondergaard - who along with a bearded Nigel Bruce was probably enlisted from a Sherlock Holmes picture being filmed on an adjacent soundstage - amply compensates.

The film's most obvious economy was in its failure to commission a decent script in the first place, which brings us to the most curious feature of 'Gypsy Wildcat', the presence of the name of author of hard-boiled thrillers James M. Cain among the writers. Thereby doubtless hangs a tale.