Buenos Días Acapulco is one of a long series of cheesy low-budget films featuring the Mexican comedy duo of Viruta and Capulina, who were popular in the 1950s and 60s, appearing on stage, television, radio and comic books in addition to the movies.
The plot of this one finds them driving to the port of Acapulco to look after Ricardo, the young son of a millionaire. When the boy is kidnapped and held on a boat, Viruta and Capulina follow in another boat, causing chaos in the harbor but managing to rescue him.
(The flying Jeep seen on the poster does not actually appear in the film!)
Things get off to a great start when one of the pink Dispatchers appears in the first shot of the film. But it's not entirely clear why Viruta and Capulina would be driving to Acapulco in one of the Jeeps from the Las Brisas hotel in Acapulco.
They screech to a stop to pick up an attractive female hitchhiker, who turns out to be a singer named Mayté, hoping for a gig at the same hotel where Viruta and Capulina will be going undercover as bellhops. Capulina gives her his trademark leer.
Mayté whistles to bring her two bandmates out of the bushes, much to Capulina's disappointment.
The next few minutes are devoted to scenic shots of the five new friends singing the title song as they drive into Acapulco, and laughing uproariously as they cause trouble including crashing into an ice cream cart and splashing these innocent bystanders.
After they arrive at the hotel there are occasional glimpses of a pink Jeep in other scenes. An interesting one is this Jeep with stretched bodywork, serving as a cocktail bar. The camera pans across it, never showing its full length at once, so here are two frames pasted together to show the whole thing. This is clearly Las Brisas, although most of the hotel scenes are at a more conventional high-rise hotel.
Another similar cocktail Jeep appears in the article Las Brisas: Birthplace of the Jeep Gala on CJ3B.info.
The second sequence that almost makes Buenos Días Acapulco worth watching, begins when tourists riding in horse-drawn carriages, and tourists driving Las Brisas Jeeps, form an impromptu parade.
The scene is reminiscent of the Surrey parade in When the Girls Take Over (1962), but this one is better because the earlier film was in black & white.
This shot gives a good look at the halfcab DJ-3A Dispatchers that helped inspire the Willys Surrey Gala (see Development of the Willys Jeep Surrey.) A small mystery here is the Jeep in the middle with the pink and white color scheme reversed; it's the only example of this I've ever seen in all the photos and film appearances of the Las Brisas Jeeps.
Perhaps one other thing that might make this movie worth watching (it's on YouTube, with no English subtitles) is the chance to see Acapulco in its tourism heyday, before drugs and gangs drove many of the tourists away.
Thanks to Federico Cavedo for finding this film. -- Derek Redmond
See more on the history of DJ-3A Surrey Gala Jeeps.
Return to Surrey Jeeps in the Movies.
See also The CJ-3B in the Movies.
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