RAMONA

US, 1936, 90 minutes, Colour.
Loretta Young, Don Ameche, Kent Taylor, Pauline Frederick, Jane Darwell, Katherine de Mi11e, John Carradine.
Directed by Henry King.

Ramona is the fourth film version of the celebrated late 19th century novel Ramona, by Helen Hunt Jackson, an author concerned about Indian rights.

The treatment is attractive though very stilted. It was chosen by 20th. Century Fox for its first Technicolor production. The emphasis is on the attractive Californian scenery and the 19th. century settings. The story, as presented by the film) is fairly straightforward, even trite. Ramona, played pleasantly by Loretta Young, seems to be the adopted daughter of a wealthy Spanish-American? family. In fact, she is part Indian. The matriarch of the household has adopted her but does not want her to marry her son Felipe (Kent Taylor). mischief is made, especially by a jealous Indian maid Margarita. However, the romance comes in the form of Don Ameche (in his second film) as the Indian Alessandro.

There are attractive scenes of the hacienda, the arrival of the Franciscan friar and his welcome, riding sequences. Felipe is injured and Alessandro and Ramona take him, despite his mother's wishes, out into the open air. Margarita makes mischief. Ramona finds out the truth about herself and leaves. She marries Alessandro and they live happily on a fari2, have a child. There is a tragic denouement - in the form of John Carradine. Alessandro hurries to get the doctor for his son, but the doctor, very busy in the town, has to plead that he can't leave one hundred for one. Alessandro takes a farmer's horse - and he is pursued by the farmer and shot.

There is a plaintive score by Alfred Newman.

The film shows the situation in California with the Spanish, the Americans, the Indians. There is sympathy for the plight of the Indians and the arrogance of the Spaniards. However, the film has dated and is of mainly historical interest.