Ramona (1936)

Set in Southern California around 1848, a bi racial girl (Native American and Caucasian) named Ramona is raised by a wealthy Spanish family whose son (Kent Taylor) is in love with her against his mother's (Pauline Frederick) wishes. But Ramona is in love with a Native American (Don Ameche), the son's best friend. Based on the 1884 novel by Helen Hunt Jackson and directed by Henry King (CAPTAIN FROM CASTILE). A hugely popular novel in its day, the movie has seen five film adaptations and in the Southern California city of Hemet, has been performed outdoors annually since 1923. This film version differs from the novel in some major ways and has a slight religious bent, predominantly in the film's last half hour. One of the earliest movies shot in three strip Technicolor, one has to accept the unlikely casting of Don Ameche as an Indian/Native American. I found most of the film charming and simpatico to the Native Americans and Spanish residents prior to the Caucasian annexation of California. Loretta Young was in her interim period during the mid to late 1930s. Relaxed and sexy in her pre code melodramas of the early thirties, she segued into an often pleasing actress (especially in comedies) in the mid to late 1930s before (not unlike Crawford) turning rather sanctimonious in the 1940s and 1950s. And she looks great in Technicolor. But oh that drippy pious last half hour. With J. Carrol Naish (in the film's worst performance), Jane Darwell, Katherine DeMille, John Carradine and Victor Kilian.