Change Your Image
razatimes
Reviews
New Orleans (1947)
The Social and Cultural Equity of the movie New Orleans.
Five of my seven stars are for "all that Jazz"....the sixth star is for the underlying story of how music crosspolinates ...the 7th star goes to Arturo de Cordoba, One of the most active Mexican actors during their Epoca de Oro cinematic age (1945-1956). His participatiin in this film accentuates the commitment by the film makers to create this most wonderful window into the worst and best of our National culture...during an era of great prejudice and Nativist activity.
Talpa (1956)
beautifully photographed film of a Juan Rulfo novel
A typical Mexican motif of crying women and womanizing men...yet in this film, the characters have depth and purpose beyond the machismo . In this film, the trouble begins when husband has turned sickly and in a rare depiction of 'erectile dysfunction', in Mexican film, the wife turns to her randy brother-in-law for affection.
But, not immediately realized until deep into the movie during a "Peregrinacion", a pilgrimage,when the brother throws himself on her.
The film is beautifully lighted and photographed with panoramic scenes of the Mexican countryside and plazas. Using real time scenes of what looks like devotional pilgrims climbing to a shrine in Cholula, Mexico....
La reina del mambo (1951)
A Mexican Musical Extravaganza
I cannot say enough good things about this extraordinary Mexican tale that reverberates with Mambo, with Romberas, rehearsed dance numbers and musical styles typifying Pachuco, Hillbilly, mambo, rumbas and Mexican rancheras! Miss Pons, plays a rich Mestiza girl that gets hood- winked by a gangster and is transported to Juarez, Mx. Suddenly, Mexican actress Sara Garcia enters the fray as a out of control drunk who befriends Pons and sees her as a daughter she never had......Sara's performance as a whizzed alcoholic who forgets everything while drunk is unforgettable.Typical gangster types, a gigantic number orchestrated by Perez Prado danced to the tune "El Ruletero", this Mexican vehicle for Argentine Pons is entertaining, one of the best 'rumbera' films of the Golden Age of Mexican films.....
Distinto amanecer (1943)
Mexican Film Noir.
I loved this film. Have been watching Mexican films for several months on a regular basis. Most have been fodder from the 50's and 60's that center on machismo and helpless females. This one is different. My first impression is how the female star Andrea Palma, looked line Marlene Dietrich! She carried the film with her pivotal role as a former love interest to one of my favorite Mexican actors Pedro Armendariz and her current husband played by Alberto Galan. This lady is one tough cookie. The constant in this film is the absolute flawless photography of Mexican legend Gabriel Figueroa and the direction of the film's director Julio Bracho. Everything is 1st class about this film, especially compared with the parochialism of Mexican cinema of the late 30's. The Noir! Plenty of it, night shadows, men wearing sunglasses at night, gangs of thugs, a jilted husband. This film is awash with shadows, drawn guns and cigarettes. No, there is no dumb and wicked blond, although the heroine uncharacteristically for Mexican films, fired a bullet into the gut of an axe wielding bad guy! This Bracho film pointed Mexican cinema into the stylistic center of world cinema of the war years. Tough and gritty like the Third Man (1949), Casablanca (1942), in an urban setting filled with night-life characters. But alas, the Mexican public won out over dirty and gritty movies with their support of films filled with music, tequila, bumbling comics and macho good guys punching out bad guys in night clubs and cantinas galore! Not until Luis Bunuel's "Los Olvidados", did Mexican cinema regain the level of storytelling accomplished in this film by director Bracho. I gave this film a 9 mostly because Pedro's performance was script acting, reciting lines using that marvelous Pedro Armendariz allure without the experience and seasoning he would quickly attain.
The Fugitive (1947)
The Cristero Rebellion in Mexico
For 5 years beginning in 1926, the Republic of Mexico waged all out war against Catholic armies in several states in Mexico until 1931. The movie made by John Ford, follows the massive effect this Catholic repression had on Mexicans and their society over this time period. The baptisms, the hostage taking, the executions, the effect this repression had on all classes of Mexican society, were part of this understated but brilliant depiction of Mexico during the Cristero Rebellion.
The fact that John Ford used the creme of the creme of Mexican films; Emiliano "El Indio" Fernandez, an iconic figure in Mexico's Golden Age of Cinema, as an associate producer, Fernando Fernandez, an accomplished singer in Mexican cinema, Miguel Inclan (the hostage), who would go on to achieve fame as the blind man in Bunuel's "Los Olvidados", Gabriel Figueroa, by far the most accomplished Mexican cinematographer of all time, Delores Del Rio and Pedro Armendariz, two of the top stars of Mexican films, to support one of America's finest movie stars Henry Fonda, speaks volumes on John Ford's efforts to craft a movie for the ages.
This film has the angst found in German films, the methodical cadence characterizing films from Great Britian, the lights and shadows of Mexico, with a good helping of an American western, thanks to another great tough guy performance by Ward Bond. The lighting, camera angles, scenic shots; Gabriel used Mexico's two most important and sacred mountains in his scenery, Popocatepetl, and Iztaccihuatl.
In closing, for all you film buffs, there is a triangle relationship between this film and one of the greatest films (if not the greatest) of all times, Citizen Kane. Everyone knows that Delores Del Rio was having a relationship with Orsen Wells, during the filming of Citizen Kane. The cinematographer of Citizen Kane, Gregg Toland, was a mentor for Gabriel Figueroa in Hollywood during the 1930's!