Blondie Goes Latin is the episode in the series where we are reminded that pert Penny Singlton got her start in musical comedy. She gets to sing and dance, and very well at that. Plot wise, this entry is standard for the amusing series which ran for 12 years and 28 episodes and made a fortune for Columbia in the process. The series was filmed mostly on Columbia's backlot, which means that if you watch the films, you will see the street and house sets from almost all the 1950s-60s Screen Gems TV shows such as Hazel, The Donna Reed Show, I Dream of Jeannie and Father Knows Best, who used the same house set for it's residence as the Blondie films. The songs employed here are quite melodic and hummable, and actress Ruth Terry (who is still living at this writing) gets a featured part and gets to sing "Don't Cry On My Shoulder" to boot. This tuneful nonsense has a big, patriotic finale which was standard procedure during the time just prior to WW2. I got this film on DVD as part of a 10 film set of Blondie films for $5.00 some years ago at Walmart. I'm not sure if it is still in print, but the quality is pretty good and it is enjoyable to have the first ten films in the series for such a low cost. These are the TV prints which cut off the original opening and closing credits, but add their own King Features credits with a theme song familiar to viewers who watched these films on TV during the 1960s. As such, these films almost play like the first Screen Gems sitcom, with continuity between films that is rare for any film series. To pad out the running time to something uniform on the shorter entries of the series, a scene from the middle of some of the films plays before the opening credits. You can fast forward over them if you don't care to see them. This seems like a review for the Blondie DVD set, yet the musical elements in Blondie Goes Latin makes that entry unique and a treat for musical fans.
