Mis padres se divorcian

The pairing of Miss Lamarque and Mr. de Córdova was doubtless a great attraction at the box office. It happened first in 1952 with "Te sigo esperando", later they came back in "Bodas de oro" (1956) and, if you didn´t get enough with "Mis padres se divorcian" (1959), you could still enjoy them in "La cigueña dijo sí" (1960 which was probably the best of them all.

Not that "Mis padres se divorcian" is a bad film since it works fine as innocent entertainment. It´s just that it could have been better if they had fine tuned the script a bit. The fighting and bickering between husband (Arturo) and wife (Libertad) runs thin after a while. To make matters worse we are dealing with a middle age couple behaving very immature but trying to come across cute .

Of course, if you are a fan of the stars you´ll have a field day watching them through all the mayhem. The Eastmancolor photography helps as well as the songs by Miss Lamarque. She is simply delightful in "Quirino con su tres" but the big production number in which she sings a medley of songs by Agustín Lara, José Alfredo Jiménez, and Consuelo Velazquez (with all three composers in attendance) is pure kirsch. On the other hand, the earthquake scene was very well done by director Julián Soler although the tragedy does not help the film.

In spite of the little problems the stars save the day. We don´t have talents like Libertad & Arturo anymore and that is why they remain legendary, symbols of a "golden era" in Mexican films. Martha Mijares is also fine as the daughter tossed around by her parents disagreements while Raúl Ramírez is just a shadow passing by. Try watching this film in COLOR. There are DVDs out there that have turned this film into black and white!