Plot

Two pairs of lovers try to thwart an arranged marriage at Costa Rican fiesta time.

Pepe Castro and Luisa Molina return to Costa Rica from U.S. schools to find that their parents have arranged their marriage. Pepe has brought his new sweetheart Celeste with him from the USA, but can't get a word in edgewise with his father. Then Luisa meets American coffee buyer Jeff Stephens at the fiesta. Meanwhile, the obtuse parents continue to plan the wrong marriage...—Rod Crawford <[email protected]>

"Costa Rica" came almost at the end of a long string of vintage "Fox musicals" dating back to the late 1930s. Featuring people like Alice Faye, Betty Grable, Carmen Miranda, Sonja Henie, John Payne, Victor Mature, Cesar Romero, Dick Haymes, etc., and choreographer Hermes Pan, their traditional plots often took the main characters to distant, exotic locales where silly little romantic misunderstandings, punctuated by lively song and dance numbers, always concluded with a happy ending. Titles in the Fox series included Alexander's Ragtime Band, Down Argentine Way, Tin Pan Alley, Weekend in Havana, That Night in Rio, Moon Over Miami, Sun Valley Serenade, Springtime in the Rockies, Song of the Islands, Hello Frisco Hello, Gang's All Here, Wintertime, and many more. But Fox seemed to become gradually more serious and realistic in the late 1940s, and those who had achieved their reputations in Fox musicals, like Miranda, Faye, Henie, even relative youngsters like Haymes & Vera-Ellen from "Costa," all drifted away from Fox, or concentrated on more serious roles, as Mature and Payne did. (One major exception was Betty Grable, who kept going strong in 1950s Fox musicals.) An old-timer work-horse like director Ratoff ("Costa") soon left directing at Fox and semi-retired, while dance-director Pan also left and eventually rejoined old partner Fred Astaire at MGM. Evidently the light-hearted but empty glossiness of the Fox musicals, like any other trend in film, was reaching the end of its line when "Costa" came out in 1947.—Steven P Hill, Cinema Studies, University of Illinois.

Two well-established Costa Rica families, headed by Papa Rico Molino (J. Carroll Naish) and Papa Castro (Pedro de Cordova), have betrothed their children, Luisa Molino (Vera-Ellen) and Pepe Castro (Cesar Romero), without taking into consideration what Luisa or Pepe might want. Pepe is in love with an American nightclub singer Celeste (Celeste Holm), and Luisa is smitten with Jeff Stephens (Dick Haymes), a young Amerian visitor to Costa Rica. It takes a while and lots of carnival and fiesta celebrations and parades, and ten songs before Papas Molino and Castro come to terms with and accept the fact that their children , no matter their age, will choose their own mates.—Les Adams <[email protected]>