Among Mamoulian’s most unusual and infectious films is the overlooked The Gay Desperado, a musical-gangster-comedy set in Mexico and telling the story of Mexican banditos enamored by onscreen images of Chicago gangsterism. Ida Lupino is glorious in a frothy comic role as an heiress kidnapped by the ambitious banditos. Adding antic comedy, and romance, is a dashing young tenor selected to be the personal singer for the bandit chief brilliantly played by Leo Carrillo. Although The Gay Desperado displays ethnic stereotypes common in the 1930s, the film nevertheless also pokes pointed fun at derogatory images and ideas of Mexicans, especially Carrillo’s larger-than-life and absolutely hilarious bandit chief. The second and last film produced by Mary Pickford together with her former boss Jesse Lasky, The Gay Desperado was largely forgotten until a 2006 preservation by the UCLA Film & Television Archive gave special attention to the luminous exterior shooting by cinematographer Lucien Andriot.