Saturday, October 29, 2011

Blanca Vischer (Billy the Kid's Gun Justice, 1940)


Blanca Vischer, as Juanita, is listed last in the on-screen credits and just below the only other cast-member, Julian Rivero.

(Four spots above, veteran bit player Al Ferguson found himself billed “Furgusan”! Imagine that, the person creating the billing card didn't know the good old Scottish name of Ferguson!! As usual with low-rent companies like PRC, no one would spend a dime correcting such mistakes. And Al even played the Boss Villain in this one!!!)

Why the character of Juanita is even included in this otherwise pleasant enough little land swindle oater starring Bob Steele remains a mystery, however; she has but one cute, if brief, sequence with “Fuzzy” St. John, who plants himself on top of an old stove in full aw shucks! embarrassment from running into such a fine-looking senorita. But that is about she is given to do, at least in the surviving copy, and one can only surmise that Miss Vischer knew or dated someone involved with the production. (She was a cantina girl in Billy the Kid's Range War, 1941.) Meanwhile, whatever pulchritude Billy the Kid's Gun Justice has is provided by the ever-popular Louise Currie.

Blanca Vischer (1915-1969) hailed from Guatemala but her official biography noted that she had spent her childhood in Germany and had later graduated from Hollywood High School. She was one of the “Golden Girls” (no, not those Golden Girls) in the 1934 actioner Wild Gold (Myrla Bratton and Peter Lorre's wife Suzanne Kaaren were also included) and she did her fair share of Spanish-language versions of Hollywood films. Vischer's screen career was surprisingly lengthy and lasted into the 1950s. She remained very much part of Hispanic Hollywood.

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