Actress Millie Perkins (Newark, 1936) had a curious career in films. She started at the top and created expectations when she debuted in the title role of «The Diary of Anne Frank» (1959). A good actress, a beautiful face, she went from Anne Frank to Elvis Presley's girl in her second movie; she married Dean Stockwell for two years and, after the divorce, suddenly, for her third film, she made the strange decision to make this movie in Spain, which I will tell you about, in the role of Aldonza, the young woman who inspired delusions in Alonso Quijano or Don Quixote de la Mancha, who ended up calling her Dulcinea. For a moment I thought: what am I doing watching this ...?
With strident sound mix and musical score by Giovanni Fusco, it tells the story of the beautiful orphan Aldonza, an unfortunate servant girl in an inn in Castilla, where she also offers sexual services. Upon receiving from Sancho Panza (Folco Lulli) a letter from Don Alonso addressed to the woman of his dreams, Aldonza leaves everything and runs next to Don Quixote, too late though, for she finds him on his deathbed. However, Aldonza, now animated by the Quixotic vision of the idealized woman, assumes the name of Dulcinea and travels through fields and towns, doing acts of charity among beggars, victims of the plague and an emigrant who has returned from America (Walter "Paparazzo" Santesso), until the infamous Inquisition stops her and Dulcinea becomes a new Joan of Arc.
All this concoction was conceived by French writer Gaston Baty, whose homonymous play (which opened in Paris in 1938) is the basis of the film: it explains its verbosity a little, since, in addition, director Vicente Escrivá added more declamatory moments. Escrivá directs with precision, but there was an undeniable star in this whole affair: the cinematographer Godofredo Pacheco, who created a catalog of black and white images of immense beauty.
And Perkins? Very well in her role, although she was dubbed. But «Dulcinea» was a turning point in her career, if one considers her subsequent determinations. She aligned with independent cinema, married screenwriter Robert Thom (author of Jonathan Demme's «Crazy Mama», Roger Corman's «Bloody Mama» and Paul Bartel's «Death Race 2000»), made three films with Monte Hellman («The Shooting» and «Ride in the Whirlwind», a diptych starring Jack Nicholson, of whom she was his bridesmaid; and the cult film «Cockfighter», with Warren Oates) and she herself became a cult actress, seen in brief parts, as Barry Shear's apocalyptic-psychedelic fantasy, "Wild in the Streets" (written by Thom) and movies by Delphine Seyrig, Wayne Wang, James Foley, Oliver Stone and Shusuke Kaneko. She surely enjoyed her life!
