cabaretera noir: Aventurera (1950)

Aventurera [videorecording]. Producciones Calderon S.A.; argumento de Alvaro Custodio; adaptacíon de Carlos Sampelayo y Alvaro Custodio ; una pelicula de pedro y Guillermo Calderón; dirigida por Alberto Gout. Cinemateca, distributed by Facets Video, [2004]. Originally released as a motion picture in 1950. Cinematography, Alex Phillips; editor, Alfredo Rosas Priego; music, Alberto Domínguez, Antonio Díaz Conde and Agustin Lara. Performers: Ninón Sevilla, Tito Junco, Andrea Palma, Miguel Inclán. With: video introduction by Michael Donnelly.

Summary: Elena tries to make a new life for herself after her mother leaves her alone, but she is drugged, seduced, and forced to work as a dancer/call girl in a nightclub. She soon rises to stardom as a dancer, but still plots revenge and escape.

style ****

substance ***1/2

Aventurera is a primo entry in the Golden Age of Mexican cinema, and, more important, perhaps the finest exemplar of the Mexican cabaretera subgenre, which is the rough equivalent of the American films noirs of the era. The critical difference, as the name implies, is that cabaretera always uses a club or casino as the backdrop and includes a goodly amount of musical numbers, also that cabaretera was more up front in its depiction of sensuality and sordidness than its Code-inhibited American cousins.

In any case the usual cabaretera story has considerable Sturm und Drang, and to spice things up, as if we needed more, the cabaret often doubles as a front for prostitution and white slavery, with the proprietor (or proprietress) leading a double life, usually as an otherwise respectable figure in high society. And, again paralleling film noir’s leftist sentiments, Aventurera and other films of its ilk swept away the curtain and revealed the seamy side of urban economic affluence in Mexico during the post-World War II years [1]. Changing tastes and other factors doomed the cabaretera to a short life span, little more than five years, and by 1956 it had more or less disappeared.

The plot of Aventurera, such as it is, concerns the character Elena (Ninon Sevilla) and her attempts to go straight after being forced into life as a prostitute and cabaret dancer by an evil bordello madam. Plot twists proceed fast and furious and the viewer can be forgiven for having difficulty keeping up with all the goings-on. But these are smoothed out by the phantasmagoric dance numbers which feature a high-energy Ninon at her most beguiling, never more so so than in the surrealist Arabian nights number, the over-the–top glory of which would do Busby Berkeley proud.

Aventurera was re-released in the late 1990s to much acclaim, and today enjoys a considerable cult following, mostly for its camp elements. But even so, after seven decades the film holds up exceptionally well, but more to the point holds up well when considered against the American films noirs of the period. And ultimately, even with all the talent in front of and behind the camera, this is Ninon Sevilla’s film start to finish.

Echoes of cabaretera can been seen even today in our current pop culture, most prominently in the immensely popular Mexican telenovelas. There was no American equivalent of cabaretera, though the closest is probably Gilda, and, strangely, in its more tenuous way, Casablanca. One quibble: the Facets DVD includes an informative introduction by film historian Michael Connelly, but a film as significant as Aventurera seems to scream out for real-time commentary as well as other extras. Perhaps Criterion can be persuaded to release an all-the-trimmings version in the future. Still, even in its present incarnation, a wild ride, and a fun movie.

[1] Aventurera has also been cited for its proto-feminist elements. The strong-willed Elena refuses to bend to the dictates of a patriarchal system; she resists the machinations of high-handed would be masters, be they a kindly, albeit clueless, husband, or a ruthless gangster, and ultimately her independent spirit prevails. There’s also the character of Rosaura, who, despite the unsavory nature of her enterprise, is a capable and successful businesswoman.

Further reading

Las reinas del trópico: María Antonieta Pons, Meche Barba, Amalia Aguilar, Ninón Sevilla, Rosa Carmina, by Fernando Muñoz Castillo. [México, D.F.] : Grupo Azabache, 1993. "Se termino de imprimir en julio de 1993 en Offset 70, S.A. de C.V., Victor Hugo 99, Mexico,03300, D.F."

Joanne Hershfield, Mexican Cinema/Mexican Woman, 1940-1950, University of Arizona Press, 1996.

Paula Barreiro Posada, ''The Only Defense is Excess: Translating and Surpassing Hollywood's Conventions to Establish a Relevant Mexican Cinema,” Anagramas Rumbos Sentidos Comunicación, v9 n18, Jan./June 2011.
 

 

Distinto Amanecer

Distinto Amanecer (Another Dawn). Mexico City: Films Mundiales, S.A., 1943. Productor, Emilio Gómez Muriel; director, Julio Bracho. With Andrea Palma, Pedro Armendáriz, Alberto Galán, Beatriz Ramos. Based on the play La Vida Conyugal by Max Aub. 

style ***1/2

substance ***1/2

Distinto Amenecer is probably as good a Hitchcock movie you’ll ever see by a director not named Alfred Hitchcock. It essentially takes the Hitchcockian chase story and sets it in an incredibly atmospheric Mexico City in the early 1940s. The basic idea is reminiscent of The 39 Steps, especially the opening scenes at the theater which bring to mind Richard Hanney being cornered by the police at the Palladium in the latter film. 

But another, even more important, quality of Distinto Amamencer is that it may well be the first film noir [1]; its release in 1943 places it a full year ahead of the traditional noir kickoff year of 1944, during which Murder My Sweet and Double Indemnity in particular closed the deal as full-blown examples of the style. 

It certainly has all the hallmarks of noir: crime story; memorable femme fatale; claustrophobic feeling; threatening urban setting; nightclub; sinister looking bad guys who menace the heroine and pursue the hero; and most of all the great nighttime, off-kilter photography of cinematographic legend Gabriel Figueroa. And make no mistake, visually the film is very dark indeed.

Distinto Amanecer takes place almost totally at night, and is beautifully shot and lit in eminently noirish style. However, the most unforgettable image, alas all too fleeting, takes place in the daytime, at dawn to be exact, nearing the end of the film as a  forlorn Julieta (Andrea Palma) walks into traffic while the tall buildings surround her somwhat menacingly.

Distinto is also probably Andrea Palma’s finest hour along with the below-mentioned Mujer del Puerto [2]. And it’s also good to see a youthful, charismatic Pedro Armendáriz; he and Palma have terrific screen chemistry throughout. My only criticism of the film is that at a leisurely 108 minutes the film feels a little longish.


[1] It’s the first Mexican film noir if we don’t count the proto-noir La Mujer del Puerto from 1934 (wouldn’t that be something if a Mexican noir anticipated Hollywood by a decade!). Of course we can go on and on about the origins and evolution of noir, and indeed writers have gone on and on. Although Double Indemnity is often cited as the first case where all the noir elements combine in a definitive whole, there were lots of prior films which flirted with the noir aesthetic, Stranger on the Third Floor from 1940 being a much referenced example. But all this is perhaps best left for a future posting. Whatever the case, Mujer del Puerto is also a great Andrea Palma vehicle and probably ranks with Distinto as her best leading role before she settled into the more mature and matronly characters she essentially played for the rest of her career.

[2] In Distinto Palma plays a woman who leads a double life: respectable wife by day and B girl at night. This seems to be a favorite [sub]plot theme in Mexican cinema, that of an upstanding middle-class or upper-class woman with a dark secret, usually running a nightclub and/or place of prostitution. At least two other Palma films, Casa de la Zorra and Aventurera, use the same idea. In the latter she reprises the shady role but in Casa plays a more virtuous character.

La Mujer del Puerto 

Family affair

La Casa de la Zorra (1945). 89 min. Producción : Compañía Cinematográfica Mexicana. Director: Juan José Ortega. Director of photography, Domingo Carrillo; editor, Juan Jose Marino; arreglos y dirección musical, Gonzalo Curiel; production designer, Paul Castelain; writers, Xavier Villaurrutia and Luis G. Basurto. With Virginia Fábregas, Isabela Corona, Alberto Galan, Sara Guasch, Susana Guízar, Ricardo Montalban, Carlos Orellana, Andrea Palma, Andres Soler, Roberto Cañedo. "Homenaje a la Eximia Actriz Mexicana, Doña Virginia Fabregas.”

More drawing room melodrama than genuine noir, Casa de la Zorra nonetheless has a couple of nifty noirish scenes of limousines prowling sinister back alleys. It also employs to good effect that noir staple, the night club (though here I believe it’s referred to more as a casino). In any case, the film also shares certain, eminently noirish thematic similarities [1] with the better-known hybrid noir-musical Aventurera, though Zorra is a straight drama without musical numbers.

But probably of most interest for American audiences is that this is an early entry in Ricardo Montalban’s oeuvre. On the cusp of rapidly rising stardom, he already displays the smooth self-assurance and easygoing charm that would serve him well throughout his career. Ricardo plays Alberto, a slightly wayward scion of an upper crust Mexico City family. Alberto has a fondness for those two usual suspects of vices, gambling and alcohol. And, yes, he has an eye for the ladies, but his romantic adventures eventually get, as the saying goes, complicated [2].

One of the film’s delights is Montalban’s mostly twilight-of-their-careers supporting cast, which includes among others Mexican film legends Andrea Palma and Virginia Fábregas. My favorite scenes include a silky Montalban/Palma waltz and Fábregas’s drunken, and very public, harangue at her casino. Despite a certain light-weightness and predictability, Zorra can be recommended as a well-heeled representative of the Golden Age of Mexican cinema.

style **1/2

substance **1/2

[1]  Family secrets and shady business dealings in particular.

[2] I must admit that I had difficulty accepting the story's basic romantic premise.