Allá en el Rancho Grande

Known in Spanish as "Allá en el Rancho Grande," this is an iconic Mexican film that launched the genre of Ranchera movies, which were wildly popular through the 1940's. These movies idealized rural life, and presented melodramatic tales about young lovers. Typically, the male protagonists are charros (fancy dress Mexican cowboys) who sing songs and fight hard, in the name of their masculine honor.

IMDb classifies this movie as a comedy, which it is not. The confusion probably springs from the fact that Allá en el Rancho Grande is usually classified by Mexican and U.S. Academics as a 'Comedia Ranchera.' Technically, the humor here is secondary to the songs and the melodrama, so perhaps it would be more accurate to refer to this movie as a melodrama in the Ranchero genre. Debates aside, don't expect the movie to be a comedy, although it has humor in it.

This original version, directed by Fernando Fuentes, who was arguably the greatest Mexican director of the 1930's (El Compadre Mendoza, El Prisionero 13, and Vámonos con Pancho Villa are masterpieces), is MUCH better than the 1949 remake starring Jorge Negrete. I say this with all due respect to the iconic stature of Negrete, a beloved Mexican star. The actors in this movie are younger, fresher, and more realistic. There's something shopworn about the later version-- everyone seems older than they should be, and less likable.

I love the embroidered Charro shirts worn by the actors in this movie.

This film is generally held in much lower regard than de Fuentes other 1936 classic, Vamanos con Pancho Villa. The conventional wisdom is that Alla en el Rancho Grande, despite having been a huge commercial success, lacked the artistic merits and brave political message of Vamanos con Pancho Villa, which a survey of Mexican cinephiles rated the most important Mexican film ever in a famous 1994 survey. This film, on the other hand, has been generally regarding in Mexico as fodder for the ignorant masses, which set off the culturally embarrassing genre of the ranch comedy.

With my expectations tempered by that background, I must say that I found Alla en el Rancho Grande to be quite an outstanding surprise. For starters, the humor is actually funny; yet it's done with a subtly and restraint quite uncommon in Mexican "comedy". This is a testament to the skill of the actors, as well as the director and editor. Secondly, the film does a good job of providing a look into the true life of a Mexican village, with references to atole and pulque and the like. It's also filmed on location and it looks and feels authentic. Maybe that's one factor which drew audiences in the day, not just their presumed lack of sophistication. The storyline is well developed and character list is fairly busy; this is not a primitive talkie like most Mexican films of the 1930s. And the songs are all well done and interesting (you'll note no less than the great Emilio Fernandez in the cockfight dance). Gabriel Figueroa (a student of Eisenstein and a contemporary of Greg Tolland) does steady early work here as cinematographer. Finally, Esther Fernandez is perfectly cast as the orphaned Cruz; her youthful spark and ever-so-slightly coquettish glances provide a remarkable complexity and attraction to her character, which in fact make the whole story line plausible.

Mexican cinephiles tend to be excessively slanted towards high art in film (call it elitism), and are also frequently tinted by a mild strain of malinchismo (a peculiar yet pernicious domestic strain of self-loathing or mental slavery). Unencumbered by those mental deficiencies, I must say that Alla en el Rancho Grande might actually be the height of pre classic Mexican cinema.

A final note, de Fuentes remade this film in 1949 with Jorge Negrete in the lead. Needless to say, it was a sad retread unworthy of the original film.