Mexican Film Noir
El Oficio Mas Antiguo Del Mundo(1970, The Oldest Profession in the World) is a dark Mexican drama with a fair amount of humor. Two drunken prostitutes, Libertad (Maricruz Olivier) and Graciela (mega babe Jacqueline Andere) walk back to the brothel where they live. On the sidewalk, they find an injured man(Oscar Chavez) dying! In the brothel, the madam(Gloria Marin) and the rest of "the women of the night" nurse the man back to health. How are they all going to react when they find out that the injured man is a priest?!
This is a plot, character, and dialouge-driven drama and it's helped by good editing. Director Luis Alcoriza jams as much sex appeal as he legally can into the film. He'll order the cameraman to shamelessly film Lina Marin's cleavage or Lupita Ferrer's legs! Oscar Chavez does a good job playing a shy, timid, nebbish priest trapped in a brothel and the late Maricruz Olivier is memorable as an intelligent, strong willed prostitute. El Oficio Mas Antiguo Del Mundo may have seemed very decadent and perverted in 1970, but it's tame by today's shameless standards...and it's nowhere as perverse and low brow as the Mexican films made in the 1980's!
The jazzy/bossy nova music score by Enrico Caviatti is very catchy. It makes me want to jump around and dance until I puke on someone! Isela Vega co-stars in this film. She played Warren Oates' girlfriend in Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia(1974). The lovely Heidi Blue co-stars in the film. I don't know where she's from, but she looks "Nordic". Eduardo Lopez Rojas plays a butler in the film. Fans of the film My Family(1995) may recognize him. Lupita Ferrer went on to co-star in the 1999 telenovela/soap opera Rosalinda. The TV version of El Oficio Mas Antiguo Del Mundo that airs on Telemundo is actually an alternate version of the film. Takes run 2-3 seconds longer and there's an alternate take when Gloria Marin yells at Jacqueline Andere. Also, the footage of Estela injecting insulin into leg is snipped out. This film is a classic of Mexican cinema.
This is a plot, character, and dialouge-driven drama and it's helped by good editing. Director Luis Alcoriza jams as much sex appeal as he legally can into the film. He'll order the cameraman to shamelessly film Lina Marin's cleavage or Lupita Ferrer's legs! Oscar Chavez does a good job playing a shy, timid, nebbish priest trapped in a brothel and the late Maricruz Olivier is memorable as an intelligent, strong willed prostitute. El Oficio Mas Antiguo Del Mundo may have seemed very decadent and perverted in 1970, but it's tame by today's shameless standards...and it's nowhere as perverse and low brow as the Mexican films made in the 1980's!
The jazzy/bossy nova music score by Enrico Caviatti is very catchy. It makes me want to jump around and dance until I puke on someone! Isela Vega co-stars in this film. She played Warren Oates' girlfriend in Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia(1974). The lovely Heidi Blue co-stars in the film. I don't know where she's from, but she looks "Nordic". Eduardo Lopez Rojas plays a butler in the film. Fans of the film My Family(1995) may recognize him. Lupita Ferrer went on to co-star in the 1999 telenovela/soap opera Rosalinda. The TV version of El Oficio Mas Antiguo Del Mundo that airs on Telemundo is actually an alternate version of the film. Takes run 2-3 seconds longer and there's an alternate take when Gloria Marin yells at Jacqueline Andere. Also, the footage of Estela injecting insulin into leg is snipped out. This film is a classic of Mexican cinema.
- rudeboy8080
- Nov 20, 2009