Down Argentine Way is a 1940 Technicolor

Technicolor

Technicolor is a color motion picture process invented in 1916 and improved over several decades.It was the second major process, after Britain's Kinemacolor, and the most widely used color process in Hollywood from 1922 to 1952...

 musical film

Musical film

The musical film is a film genre in which songs sung by the characters are interwoven into the narrative, sometimes accompanied by dancing. The songs usually advance the plot or develop the film's characters, though in some cases they serve merely as breaks in the storyline, often as elaborate...

 made by Twentieth Century Fox. It made a star of Betty Grable

Betty Grable

Elizabeth Ruth "Betty" Grable was an American actress, dancer and singer.Her iconic bathing suit photo made her the number-one pin-up girl of the World War II era. It was later included in the LIFE magazine project "100 Photos that Changed the World"...

 in her first leading role for the studio, and introduced American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 audiences to Carmen Miranda

Carmen Miranda

Carmen Miranda, GCIH was a Portuguese-born Brazilian samba singer, Broadway actress and Hollywood film star popular in the 1940s and 1950s. She was, by some accounts, the highest-earning woman in the United States and noted for her signature fruit hat outfit she wore in the 1943 movie The Gang's...

. The film also starred Don Ameche

Don Ameche

Don Ameche was an Academy Award winning American actor with a career spanning almost sixty years.-Personal life:...

, The Nicholas Brothers

Nicholas Brothers

The Nicholas Brothers were a famous African American team of dancing brothers, Fayard and Harold . With their highly acrobatic technique , high level of artistry and daring innovations, they were considered by many the greatest tap dancers of their day...

, Charlotte Greenwood

Charlotte Greenwood

Frances Charlotte Greenwood was an American actress and dancer. Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Greenwood started in vaudeville, and eventually starred on Broadway, movies and radio. Standing around six feet tall, she was best known for her long legs and high kicks...

, and J. Carrol Naish

J. Carrol Naish

Joseph Patrick Carrol Naish was an American character actor born in New York City. Naish was twice nominated for an Academy Award for film roles, and he later found fame in the title role of CBS Radio's Life With Luigi , which was also on CBS Television .Naish appeared on stage for several years...

. The film was directed by Irving Cummings

Irving Cummings

Irving Cummings , born Irving Camisky in New York City, New York was an American movie actor, director, producer and writer....

 and produced by Darryl F. Zanuck

Darryl F. Zanuck

Darryl Francis Zanuck was an American producer, writer, actor, director and studio executive who played a major part in the Hollywood studio system as one of its longest survivors...

 from a screenplay

Screenplay

A screenplay or script is a written work that is made especially for a film or television program. Screenplays can be original works or adaptations from existing pieces of writing. In them, the movement, actions, expression, and dialogues of the characters are also narrated...

 by Karl Tunberg

Karl Tunberg

Karl Tunberg was an American screenwriter and occasional film producer.Born in Spokane, Washington, Tunberg's earliest writings included short stories, and a novel entitled While the Crowd Cheers, which was published in 1935 by the Macaulay Company...

 and Darrell Ware based on a story by Rian James and Ralph Spence. The cinematography was by Leon Shamroy

Leon Shamroy

Leon Shamroy, A.S.C. was an American film cinematographer. Together with Charles Lang, he holds the record for most number of Academy Award nominations for Cinematography...

 and Ray Rennahan

Ray Rennahan

Ray Rennahan, A.S.C. was a movie cinematographer.For his work in movies, he became one of the only six cinematographers to have a "Star" on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. The other five are: Haskell Wexler, Conrad L. Hall, J...

 and the costume design by Travis Banton

Travis Banton

Travis Banton was the chief designer at Paramount Pictures. He is considered one of the most important Hollywood costume designers of the 1930s.He was born in Waco, Texas. Travis moved to New York City as a child...

.

Cast

• Don Ameche
  Don Ameche
  Don Ameche was an Academy Award winning American actor with a career spanning almost sixty years.-Personal life:...
  
   - Ricardo Quintana
• Betty Grable
  Betty Grable
  Elizabeth Ruth "Betty" Grable was an American actress, dancer and singer.Her iconic bathing suit photo made her the number-one pin-up girl of the World War II era. It was later included in the LIFE magazine project "100 Photos that Changed the World"...
  
   - Glenda Crawford
• Carmen Miranda
  Carmen Miranda
  Carmen Miranda, GCIH was a Portuguese-born Brazilian samba singer, Broadway actress and Hollywood film star popular in the 1940s and 1950s. She was, by some accounts, the highest-earning woman in the United States and noted for her signature fruit hat outfit she wore in the 1943 movie The Gang's...
  
   - Herself
• Charlotte Greenwood
  Charlotte Greenwood
  Frances Charlotte Greenwood was an American actress and dancer. Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Greenwood started in vaudeville, and eventually starred on Broadway, movies and radio. Standing around six feet tall, she was best known for her long legs and high kicks...
  
   - Binnie Crawford
• J. Carrol Naish
  J. Carrol Naish
  Joseph Patrick Carrol Naish was an American character actor born in New York City. Naish was twice nominated for an Academy Award for film roles, and he later found fame in the title role of CBS Radio's Life With Luigi , which was also on CBS Television .Naish appeared on stage for several years...
  
   - Casiano
• Henry Stephenson
  Henry Stephenson
  Henry Stephenson , sometimes credited as Harry Stephenson, was a British character actor....
  
   - Don Diego Quintana
• Kay Aldridge
  Kay Aldridge
  Kay Aldridge was an American model and actress. She is best known for playing feisty and frequently-imperiled heroines in black and white serials during the 1940s.-Life and work:...
  
   - Helen Carson
• Leonid Kinskey
  Leonid Kinskey
  Leonid Kinskey was a Russian-born movie and television actor who enjoyed a long career. Kinskey is best known for his role as Sascha in the film Casablanca ....
  
   - Tito Acuna
• Chris-Pin Martin - Esteban
• Robert Conway - Jimmy Blake
• Gregory Gaye
  Gregory Gaye
  Gregory Gaye was a Russian-American actor. The son of an actor, he was born Gregory De Gay in Petrograd, now known as St. Petersburg....
  
   - Sebastian, the Headwaiter
• Bobby Stone - Panchito
• Charles Judels
  Charles Judels
  Charles Judels was a Dutch-born American film actor. He appeared in 137 films between 1915 and 1949. He also did extensive work as a voice-over actor in animated films, notably as the voice of Stromboli in Walt Disney's Pinocchio, and in the Warner Brothers Looney Tunes short Porky's Garden.He was...
  
   - Dr. Arturo Padilla, the Ambassador
• Fayard Nicholas
  Fayard Nicholas
  Fayard Antonio Nicholas...
  
   - Specialty Dancer (as The Nicholas Brothers)
• Harold Nicholas
  Harold Nicholas
  Harold Lloyd Nicholas was an American dancer specializing in tap. He was the younger half of the world famous tap dancing pair the Nicholas Brothers, known as two of the world's greatest dancers. His older brother was Fayard Nicholas...
  
   - Specialty Dancer (as The Nicholas Brothers)

Awards

The film was nominated for three Academy Awards, for Best Cinematography

Academy Award for Best Cinematography

The Academy Award for Best Cinematography is an Academy Award awarded each year to a cinematographer for work in one particular motion picture.-History:...

, Best Original Song

Academy Award for Best Original Song

The Academy Award for Best Original Song is one of the awards given annually to people working in the motion picture industry by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences . It is presented to the songwriters who have composed the best original song written specifically for a film...

 and for Best Art Direction

Academy Award for Best Art Direction

The Academy Awards are the oldest awards ceremony for achievements in motion pictures. The Academy Award for Best Art Direction recognizes achievement in art direction on a film. The films below are listed with their production year, so the Oscar 2000 for best art direction went to a film from 1999...

 by Richard Day

Richard Day (art director)

Richard Day was a Canadian art director. He won seven Academy Awards and was nominated for a further 13 in the category Best Art Direction He worked on 265 films between 1923 and 1970....

 and Joseph C. Wright

Joseph C. Wright

Joseph C. Wright was an American art director. He won two Academy Awards and was nominated for ten more in the category Best Art Direction...

.