hawparks

In my opinion this is by far the best and most important Mexican movie since "La Sombra del Caudillo". A movie also made from a novel in 1960 that was seized by the army and never released, and was done in the same style of using fictitious names. After I heard that this movie was filmed in my home town Puebla (I'm a US citizen now living in LA), and a candidate for a nomination for best foreign film, I rushed for the book and read it. It didn't take too long for me to realize who and what she (Angeles Mastretta) was talking about, and I loved it. So I rushed for the DVD and couldn't find it, but somehow I saw the movie. In the version that I saw, I noticed an important and brief episode from the book (among others) that was missing in the movie almost at the end. I'm referring to a serenade performed by the best and most popular artists in those days, Pedro Vargas and Agustin Lara (there's a statue of Lara in a park in Los Angeles), that ended in a clean fist fight won by the kid with the motorcycle, that the young daughter of the general loved, and who mysteriously died a few days later in a motorcycle accident (?). Who was the rich kid? Well, who could afford to take these artists to Puebla for a simple serenade? But who wants to be an enemy of the media anyway. I wonder if the richest man in the world, whose name appears at the end in the credits as contributor to the movie, also contributed to the omission of this episode or if it was not filmed at all, that, I don't know. But anyway that is not too important compared to another character that is almost invisible in the book (and movie) by the name of "Don Mike Heiss". If you find out who he really was then do a simple research, like I did, and visit the archives of the New York Times. You'll be surprise of these articles from 1917 (the year Zapata was murdered)-1919 (Villa was murdered a few years later) when USA was about to invade Mexico again just to liberate this special agent ("Heiss") from a Puebla penitentiary. "HEISS" became the richest man in Mexico and probably in the world after Rockefeller, and was the partner of all the richest man in Mexico at the time, with the help of "General Ascencio", who was in charge of making offers nobody could refuse. After "Ascencio" died, "Cienfuegos" became one of the richest men in the world during the six years he was president. All this just proves that unfortunately there is nothing to celebrate next year on the centennial of the revolution the 18th day of November 1910, with the exception of remembering Aquiles Serdan the first martyr of the unconsummated and so-called revolution, initiated also in my beautiful home town of Puebla de Los Angeles (Mastretta?). The acting in this movie is the best I've seen in many years. Thank you Ana Claudia, Daniel and Roberto, from now on you are my favorite actors and director. Please don't go to Hollywood, you all are more needed in Mexico.

I hadn't seen this movie since the 50's when I saw it at least 4 or 5 times. I didn't want to see it again since then because they never released a widescreen tape of it. So I waited and waited and finally it arrived, and just in time to celebrate the 50th anniversary of his 3 movies and to remember the premature departing of such a great actor. The first thing I did was to see the movie and I couldn't be more happy to see it in the original cinemascope ratio and the stereo sound. But I got happier with the surprise that comes on the second DVD, with the deleted scenes and the screen tests and trailer (dvd #1). But the best part to me was to see him acting doing the wardrobe tests, particularly the one with Lois Smith. Where it seems that he ends up seducing her and saying to himself: "hey I was only acting!. Also there is a scene in the trailer when Julie tells him that she loves him, that was cut from the film and I think it should have been included. So thank you to whom it may concern for the treat. I just hope that the young people give it a try, after all is not in b/w. I'm sure they will love it, it's better than most of the new ones. Just like good wine, it gets better with the years.

Believe or not but in this movie I just love to see over and over again the opening credits. And I am sure that everybody that sees this movie, will agree with me. Another outstanding thing is that if you think that rap music was invented and started in the 90's, you must check out this lady from the 50's. Now, the rest of the movie is a very serious drama. A drama that made me laugh throughout the movie like if it was a comedy. Could this be a funny drama? I don't know but if you give it a chance you'll know what I mean. And about the DVD, I was disappointed to read that it was in "full screen", but when I saw it I couldn't be more happy to see that it was a mistake and it was in widescreen as it should (too bad it was mono). And too bad that in those days the credits at the end were so short. It would've been great to see Jerry do the whole "high school confidential" again, or maybe "great balls of fire". I gave it a 10 for the credits, 8 for the rap song and 0 for the rest, My total is 6.