Juan de la Cruz Movies

Roots is a highly praised multipart saga of an ethnic minority. And it was filmed in Mexico in 1954. You read that right: the Roots we're talking about is not the Alex Haley miniseries, but a four-episode historical drama concerning itself with various aspects of Mexican-American life. Director Benito Alazraki was among the seven writers who adapted the screenplay from the works of Francisco Roja Gonzalez. Originally titled Raices, the film won the International Critics Award at the Cannes Film Festival. A shortened version was released in the US in 1958. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The title tells all in the PRC quickie Delinquent Daughters. June Carlson and Teala Loring play a couple of mature-looking teenagers named June and Sally, whose parents never have any time for them. As a result, June and Sally fall in with a bad crowd and get mixed up in illicit drinking, wild parties and petty crimes. Vivacious French-Canadian comedienne Fifi D'Orsay is cast against type as a hard-boiled roadhouse hostess, while Joe Devlin, who spent most of the 1940s playing Mussolini lookalikes, represents The Law. As was the case in most films of this ilk, Delinquent Daughters ends up in a courtroom, with a stern-voiced judge (Frank McGlynn) admonishing both the girls and their neglectful parents. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Miss V From Moscow was singled out by B-film historian Don Miller as "one of the worst movies ever made by any standards, certainly the worst movie of its year." Seen today, the film seems to be simply another mediocre wartime meller from the cramped studios of PRC. Lola Lane plays Soviet secret agent Vera Marova, who bears a striking resemblance to a Nazi spy. Taking advantage of this, she confounds the German high command in occupied Paris, and also comes to the rescue of downed American flyer Steve Worth (Howard Banks). Much of the dialogue is hilariously inept (perhaps intentionally so), with some of the biggest yocks provided by Noel Madison as a would-be Goebbels. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Suzy is the film in which Cary Grant, overcome by the beauty and vivacity of Jean Harlow, sings her a love ballad! This lighthearted moment aside, Suzy, adapted from a novel by Herbert Gorman is a standard-issue love triangle, set against the tapestry of World War I. Harlow plays a London showgirl, married to Irish engineer Franchot Tone. When foreign spy Benita Hume shoots Tone, mistaking him as a threat against her mission, the terrified Harlow flees into the night, certain that she will be accused of her husband's murder. After the war breaks out, Harlow, believing herself a widow, falls in love with handsome aviator Cary Grant. She marries the well-bred but irresponsible young ace, only to discover that Tone has not been killed after all! This being an idealized World War I film, somebody is going to end up sacrificing his/her life on behalf of somebody else, but we're not about to reveal any more. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This light comedy was based on Anthony Hope's novel Captain Dieppe. Robert Warwick plays the captain, an international agent and diplomatic freelancer who is having differences with his latest employers, a small Italian principality. They refuse to pay him until he gives them a crucial report and he refuses to hand over the report until they pay him. Ultimately he leaves, and the minister sends secret service man Guillamo Sevier (Walter Long) after him. But Dieppe eludes Sevier and stays in Fieramondi, as the guest of the Count (Juan de la Cruz, otherwise known as James Cruze, who directed the picture). The Count and his wife (Winifred Greenwood) have been arguing over a certain Paul Sharp (Howard Gaye), and are currently estranged. Dieppe sees Lucia Bonavia D'Orano (Helene Chadwick), a cousin of the Count's by marriage, and believes her to be the Countess. He falls in love with her on sight, and when he finds out that the Countess owes a gambling debt to Sharp, he steals the I.O.U. He figures that this will bring the Count and Countess back together again, and that he is making a big romantic sacrifice. When he discovers the woman he loves isn't the Countess at all, he is overjoyed. He finally gets the money owed him, along with winning the girl. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

Where Are My Children was one of twelve 1916 films co-directed by the husband-and-wife team of Phillips Smalley and Lois Weber. Another of the team's "message" pictures, this one tackled the touchy subject of Birth Control. Set in an unnamed Big City, the story focuses on a district attorney, who loves children, and his socialite wife, who does not. Upon graduating from college, the wife's brother moves in with the couple. Smitten by the brother, the couple's maidservant enters into an affair with the boy, the result being an unwanted pregnancy. Offering to help out, the wife arranges for an illegal abortion. Unfortunately, something goes wrong, and the maid dies. The D.A. husband arrests the doctor and sentences him to 15 years in prison -- then makes the startling discovery that among the doctor's clients was his own wife. Investigating further, the D.A. learns that he has never become a father because of his wife's multiple abortions, and that all of his wife's friends have been similarly "serviced" by the doctor. The film ends with a haunting double-exposure sequence, as the repentant wife and her grieving friends conjure up visions of the babies whose lives they have snuffed out because of their own selfishness. Though Where Are My Children may seem naively reactionary in these more enlightened times, the film was undeniably strong and powerful stuff in its day. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide