Studio: Walt Disney Studio
Distributor: Celebrity Productions
Short Synopsis
Mickey rides across the Argentine pampas on a rhea, an ostrich-like bird, and pulls up at the Cantino Argentino, a saloon where a wanted poster on the wall shows Mickey himself as "El Gaucho". Inside, Minnie is the barmaid and dancer. As she dances a tango, Mickey and another customer, the outlaw Black Pete, both make a play for her. Pete settles the rivalry by kidnapping Minnie and riding off on his donkey. Mickey chases him on the rhea, which has been drinking and runs drunkenly, and catches up with Pete at his hideout. The two fight a sword duel. Mickey wins by jamming a chamber pot, pulled from under a bed, over Pete's head, and rides away with Minnie on the rhea.
Why It Matters
- The film is a cartoon parody of Douglas Fairbanks's swashbuckler The Gaucho (1927), and Mickey's swagger, cigarette in mouth, beer in hand, gives a glimpse of the brash, Fairbanks-style action hero Disney first imagined him as. The drunken rhea is a gag-by-gag delight.
- It was the second Mickey film made, and its silent version was finished in August 1928 but held back while the studio made Steamboat Willie; it was then released with sound. It is also the first Disney film in which Pete appears as a cat, because the bear-like version of him used in the Alice and Oswald films belonged to Universal.
Notes and Trivia
- Roy O. Disney recorded the film's total cost in his ledger as $4,249.73.
- Mickey and Minnie switch from their early Plane Crazy designs to their more familiar look partway through the film, after Pete arrives.
- The short entered the U.S. public domain on 1 January 2024.
- See also: Plane Crazy (1928), Steamboat Willie (1928).