Noticias

Montiel movies: From the blockbuster La Violetera to new versions of Carmen and Camille (Please check out the previous post: "Legendary Spanish Star Dead at 85."] Next in line for the sensual, husky-voice performer was a second tear-jerking hit: Luis César Amadori's La Violetera ("The Violet Peddler," 1958), for which Montiel is supposed to have earned $1 million dollars. In this romantic musical melodrama, she plays Soledad Moreno, a flower seller in the Madrid of the early 1900s, who falls in passionately love with an aristocrat played by Italian star Raf Vallone. As to be expected, class issues arise. Soledad flees for France, where she becomes (surprise!) a singing sensation. What follows includes tears, despair, a deadly iceberg (heard of the Titanic?), psychological and physiological trauma, and, finally, eternal love. Pictured above: A very sexy Montiel in a risque Gina Lollobrigida-like pose. “La violetera was even bigger than El último cuplé,...