"Cuando Lloran Los Valientes" is a highly melodramatic film...highly. It's certainly NOT realistic and the plot is, at times, a bit hard to believe. However, despite this, it's still an entertaining film.
The film is set during the Mexican Civil War of 1857-1861. This was a period of chaos and two separate governments claiming sovereignty over the country. In the middle of this is Agapito (Pedro Infante)--a peasant who just wants to marry his Cristina (Blanca Estela Pavón) and live his life. However, apart from the war, another thing stands in his way--his crazy (and trampy) step-sister, Chabela (Virginia Serret). Chabela secretly loves Agapito and to stop him from marrying Cristina, she gets herself pregnant and gets Agapito to agree to marry her--although it's NOT his baby. In addition to this plot, there is the evil brother of Cristina (the baby's real father) and an unknown step-brother! How all these play out in the end is completely ridiculous but entertaining.
As usual, Infante was quite entertaining and sang a lot of lovely songs. In many ways, the film seems very light and trivial--much like a Roy Rogers B-movie merged with a historical drama. Not a bad film at all, but not especially deep or realistic.
By the way, I think the captioner working on the English captioned version took some liberties with interpreting the film into English. The film abounds with lots of cursing--and rather hardcore at that. I doubt if this was actually said in the original film.
