THE MEXICAN FILM BULLETIN VOL. 23 NO. 2 JUNE 2017 The Mexican Film bulletin Volume 23 number 2 June 2017 Los olvidados (1950), for which she received an Ariel nomination. She later won an Ariel as Best Juvenile Obituaries Actress for her role in Historia de un corazón and was also Gustavo Rojo nominated for Mi esposa y la otra . She eventually Actor Gustavo Rojo, veteran of the Golden Age of appeared in more than Mexican cinema, died on 22 April 2017; he was 93 years 50 feature films. old. Gustavo Adolfo Krefeld Sarandí Rojo y Pinto was Fuentes married Julio born on a ship crossing the Atlantic Ocean in September Azcárraga in 1954. They 1924; upon arrival in had 4 children. This Uruguay, he became a marriage ended in citizen of that country. divorce; Fuentes was Rojo’s mother was writer later briefly married to Mercedes Pinto; his older actor Rafael del Río. sister became an actress After her wedding to under the name Pituka de Azcárraga (a member of Foronda, and his younger the powerful Azcárraga brother Rubén Rojo also media family), Fuentes had a long acting career. temporarily retired from Gustavo Rojo began acting but returned to acting as a teenager in television and cinema in the 1960s, with roles in La isla de Mexican cinema, and los dinosaurios, Lucio Vázquez, Peligro! Mujeres en continued to work in accion and Doctor Satán , among others. After Fallaste films and on television until 2016. In addition to his corazón (1969), she retired once more, this time for good. Mexican career, Rojo also made numerous films in Spain In late 2015, the magazine “Proceso” interviewed and other European countries, as well as South America. Fuentes in her decaying home in Naucalpan (in the state of He also worked on various Hollywood TV series in the México), where she was living in poverty, forgotten by late 1950s and early 1960s. most. The mystery of her early retirement from acting and Rojo’s film credits include Eterna agonía, El gran virtual disappearance was never clarified. calavera (directed by Luis Buñuel), La principessa delle Canarie (with Silvana Pampanini and Marcelo Margarita Mastroianni), Alexander the Great (with Richard Burton), isabel El Condor (with Lee Van Cleef) , The Valley of Gwangi, Old Shatterhand , and many others. Actress Margarita Isabel died Gustavo Rojo was married three times: to Mercedes in Cuernavaca of respiratory Castellanos (the mother of his first daughter, Alejandra), to problems on 9 April 2017. actress Erika Remberg, and to former “Miss Peru” and Margarita Isabel Morales occasional actress Carmela Stein (the mother of his other 3 González was born in Mexico children, including actress Ana Patricia Rojo). City in July 1941. She studied acting with the famous Seki Sano at the Instituto de Bella Artes, and became a Alma Delia Fuentes professional actress in the 1960s, although she also worked Actress Alma Delia Fuentes died on 2 April 2017 at the as a television presenter and politically active journalist. age of 80. Alma Delia Susana Fuentes González, born in She appeared in numerous films, on the stage, and on Mexico City in January 1937, became a professional television, retiring in the late 2000s. Her credits include actress while still a child, making her screen debut in 1946. Los recuerdos de porvenir, La otra virginidad, Las Although she had already made nearly a dozen films, apariencias engañan, Como agua para chocolate, Danzón, Fuentes became famous after appearing in Luis Buñuel’s Mujeres insumisas, and Cronos , for directors including 1 THE MEXICAN FILM BULLETIN VOL. 23 NO. 2 JUNE 2017 Arturo Ripstein, Jaime Humberto Hermosillo (multiple Águilas frente al sol (1932) times), Guillermo del Toro, Alfonso Arau, Alberto Isaac, Sueño de amor (1935) and María Novaro. Marihuana (El monstruo verde) : FOUND Margarita Isabel won three Arieles, for Mujeres Refugiados en Madrid (1938): FOUND insumisas, Dos crímenes, and Como agua para chocolate ; La golondrina (1938): FOUND she was also nominated for Chido Guan, el tacos de oro Carnival en el trópico (1941): FOUND and Las apariencias engañan . El As Negro (1943): FOUND She was married to Mario Iván Martínez Ortega in the La mujer sin cabeza (1943): FOUND 1960s; one of their two sons is actor Mario Iván Martínez. Tribunal de justicia (1943) De Nueva York a Huipangillo (1943) Arsenio Lupin (1945): FOUND Inspector Víctor vs. Arsenio Lupin (1945): FOUND mario moreno El canto de la sirena (1946) ivanova Casa de perdición (1954): FOUND Mario Moreno Ivanova, the biological and adopted El río y la muerte (1954): FOUND son of Mario Moreno “Cantinflas,” died of a heart attack La fuerza del deseo (1955) on 15 May 2017. Santo contra el rey del crimen (1961): FOUND Moreno Ivanova was the son of Cantinflas and Santo en el hotel de la muerte (1961): FOUND Marion Roberts, a young woman from the USA who met Santo contra el cerebro diabólico (1961): FOUND the famed film Santo contra el estrangulador (1963): FOUND comedian in Santo contra la hija de Frankestein (1971): FOUND Mexico in 1959. El vampiro y el sexo (1968): FOUND Their child was Enigma de muerte (1968): FOUND born in September Arañas infernales (1966): FOUND 1960. Roberts La mujeres panteras (1966): FOUND committed suicide Los destrampados (1971): FOUND in December 1961, El rincón de las vírgenes (1972): FOUND and young Mario Los Supersabios (1978): FOUND was adopted by Veneno para las hadas (1984): FOUND Cantinflas and his Here are some other films that have made my “want to wife Valentina in see” list in intervening years: 1962. Yolanda (Brindis al amor) (1943): released (cut and Mario Moreno dubbed into English) as Toast to Love in 1951 Ivanova was only Mis manos (1964): an entry in the Primer Concurso de peripherally involved in the film industry, producing one Cine Experimental. feature film, Welcome María (1986), which received Director Julio Cahero minimal distribution. After his father’s death in 1993, was a long-time Moreno Ivanova and his cousin, Eduardo Moreno assistant director in the Laparade, entered into a decades-long legal dispute over industry. A rural the rights to the majority of the films of Cantinflas. drama. Moreno Laparade eventually won this case. Cautivo del más Moreno is survived by Valentina del Moral and Mario allá (1967): the Moreno del Moral, children of his first marriage to Abril original film that was del Moral. He subsequently married Sandra Bernat, but the later released (with marriage was dissolved in an acrimonious divorce. In added gore and nudity) 2013, their son Mario Moreno Bernat committed suicide, as Terror, sexo y and their other two children also experienced various brujería (1985), which personal tribulations. Moreno was married to Tita Marbez I have seen. at the time of his death, although they were separated. Super Colt 38 (1968): L.E. Vergara, who hired Boris cine search Karloff & John Carradine to make Mexican films, also In MFB 4/11 (June 1998), I posted a list of Mexican made 2 Westerns, one with Nick Adams and this one, films I’d like to see but had been unable to obtain. starring Jeffrey Hunter. I saw it years ago, it’s rare now. Fortunately, most of these films subsequently became Blue Demon y las seductoras (1968): nude scenes available on television or video: version of Blue Demon y las invasoras 2 THE MEXICAN FILM BULLETIN VOL. 23 NO. 2 JUNE 2017 Los leprosos y el sexo : nude scenes version of Santo barrio and is essentially family-friendly). Other films vs. los jinetes del terror (1970): This version exists in the marketed as sexy-comedies turn out to be more crime- Calderón archives but is not currently available. oriented (especially the Frontera productions). So Roy del espacio (1979): rare animated science-fiction categorising a film as a sexy-comedy is not exact science. feature. The sexy-comedy did not suddenly appear, fully- Thanatos (1985): formed. There are several significant groups of films fantasy film directed which were predecessors to the genre, although they were by Christian less explicit (with little or no nudity) and--despite González (his first hedonistic goings-on--usually concluded in a morally feature) conservative manner, supporting the institution of Los mercenarios monogamous marriage. (El tanque negro) In the latter half of the 1960s, veteran actor Mauricio (1986) : I don’t Garcés teamed up with René Cardona Jr. for 8 films which know what it’s strongly about, but I’d like to see it. Directed by Eduardo Carrasco resemble Zanini & starring “Flaco” Guzmán. sexy- Las profesoras del amor (1987): allegedly contains comedies explicit (non-simulated) sex scenes, perhaps the first (Cardona Jr. feature in Mexican cinema to do so. Directed by Ángel also directed Rodríguez Vázquez under a pseudonym. See: Garcés in Las http://archivo.eluniversal.com.mx/espectaculos/74573.html fieras , which Guerreros diabólicos (1990) : available on a 3-film is less DVD but this generally fetches over $20 and I’m not relevant). paying that. “Members of a Satanic cult kidnap women!” Garcés also Ambar (1992): fantasy-adventure, dir. Luis Estrada. appeared in at least 10 other proto-sexy comedies in this era. In the majority of these movies Garcés is portrayed as a sexy-comedies womaniser whose reputation is either misleading or whose romantic/sexual activity results in various distressing One of the most popular genres of 1980s Mexican situations for him, a trait later seen in sexy-comedies. cinema was the “sexy-comedy”—although the genre is Four of Garcés' movies were produced by Interfilms, a difficult to define, well over 125 films which probably fit relatively short-lived company which made nearly 20 films into this category were produced between 1978 (arguably in a four-year period, largely risqué comedies (their other the year when sexy-comedies were born) and 1990.