Maria Duval Movies
French director Roger Vadim pillages his own grave in this nominal re-make of his 1956 creamy sensation And God Created Woman -- the film that made Brigitte Bardot an international star. Unfortunately, he is unable to do the same thing for the cool and cryptic Rebecca DeMornay in this version. DeMornay plays an escaped convict who lands in the limousine of New Mexico gubernatorial candidate Frank Langella and seduces him. For some inexplicable reason, she turns into a hot singing act. DeMornay also seduces innocent stud carpenter Vincent Spano along the way and suckers the poor guy into marrying her so that she can get an early parole. But the joke is on him when she announces that their marriage does not include sexual relations. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Rebecca De Mornay, Vincent Spano, (more)
- 1987
This musical performance tells the story of an old man, his three daughters and the young woman he wants to marry. ~ All Movie Guide
- 1980
Jim Jarmusch made his directorial debut with this episodic profile of one troubled hipster trying to make sense of his life. Aloysius Parker (Christopher Parker), known to his friends as "Allie," is a young man with a damaged family background (his mother is in a mental institution and his father has gone missing) and an inability to sleep, causing him to dream while he's awake. After a troubling encounter with his girlfriend (Leila Gastil) and a frustrating visit with his mother, Allie drifts through a strangely under-populated New York City, crossing paths with a sharp-suited street musicians (John Lurie), a middle-aged jazz fan (Frankie Faison), a disturbed Latin woman (Maria Duval) and a popcorn girl at a movie theater (Lisa Rosen) who's fascinated with Eskimos. A chance encounter with a woman with a vintage Ford Mustang gives Allie the opportunity to escape the chaos around him. While Permanent Vacation made the rounds of European film festivals after its completion in 1980, it was all but ignored in the United States, and it wasn't until Jarmusch released Stranger Than Paradise in 1984 that his star began to rise on the independent film scene. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Leila Gastil, Maria Duval, (more)
- 197z
This Spanish musical production features the beauty of the Mexican countryside. In Spanish! ~ All Movie Guide
- 1969
Las Vampiras and The Vampire Girls are the alternate titles to this Mexican schlock-shocker. Like his fellow horror-thespian Boris Karloff, John Carradine made four Mexican horror films back-to-back in the late 1960s. This one is the most accessible, and also the most tolerable. Once more cast as Count Dracula, Carradine is followed around by winged female vampires with enormous breasts. The Count is eventually overthrown by power-hungry Maria Duval. Outside of Carradine, the only cast member who can truly act in The Vampires is Pedro Armendariz Jr. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
This Mexican-made western features Robert Conrad (also the director) as one of three outlaw cowboys who head south of the border after being rescued from the hangman's noose by a Mexican compadre. From their refuge in a Mexican mission, they set out looking for a fortune in buried gold. ~ All Movie Guide
The title character in Juan Colorado lives a life on the run from authorities who want him jailed for something he did not do. Soon he must decide to focus on the woman he loves, or sacrificing that love in order to even the score with those who have harmed him. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide
- 1962
An unpretentious musical comedy by Mexican director Fernando Coates, the "young and beautiful" in this tale are, on the one hand, a group of young women whose parents are worried about their future and on the other, some young men who are not worried about very much. The teen women are too involved with rock 'n roll and not paying enough attention to the important things in life, according to their parents. And so they are sent out into the countryside in the hopes that this isolation will leave them without their main passion. Unfortunately for the parents, the young men in the countryside are all for the new, modern sounds -- and just the opposite of isolation results. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gaston Santos, Maria Eugenia San Martin, (more)
A femme fatale to end all, the woman who stands at the center of Gilberto Gazcon's erotically-charged western drama Remolino plots and schemes to win the amorous adoration of three men on one ranch - father, son and the local martinet. Her deceptions inevitably lead to a heated confrontation between the suitors - meanwhile raising the pivotal question of whether they will recognize her true nature before the damage done is irreversible. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide
- 1961
The masked Mexican wrestling marvel Santo (aka Samson) fights a flock of female vampires who are trying to make an innocent woman their next queen. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
The Living Coffin is a Mexican filmization of that old Edgar Allan Poe standby The Premature Burial. A seriously ill woman is terrified that she'll be buried while in a comatose state. To avoid this contingency, she has an alarm installed inside her coffin (indicating that someone involved with this film had seen the 1931 Paramount chiller Murder by the Clock). It comes to pass that the woman is indeed declared dead, planted six feet under, and.....hoo hoo hah hah HAAAAH! The legendary B-flick showman/huckster K. Gordon Murray filmed The Living Coffin in 1958 under the title El Grito de la Muerte; it didn't make the American rounds until 1965 (talk about rising from the dead!) ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1946
The titular "three rats" in this Argentine romantic comedy are a trio of pretty sisters, the young and prettiest of which is star Maria Duval. When economic difficulties befall them, the ladies leave their family hacienda behind and head for the big city. Here they try to find true love and happiness, with mixed results. For example, the middle sister (Amelia Rence) falls for a no-good louse (Gomez Cou), whose misbehavior has a profound effect on the other girls. In the end, only one of the "three rats" has found her heart's desire -- and it isn't top-billed Mecha Ortiz. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Mecha Ortiz, Maria Duval, (more)
- 1943
This Argentine film is based on a popular English-language stage play by Aimee and Philip Stuart. Latin American movie favorite Maria Duval plays a teenaged girl who becomes incensed when her widowed mother (Alicia Barrie) makes plans to remarry. Duval goes to great and drastic lengths to dissuade her mother, at one point attempting suicide. She is rescued in the nick of time, whereupon she resigns herself to the fact that Mom has every right to her own happiness. Filmed on location in the Cordoba Hills, 16 Anos is attractively produced and well acted. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Maria Duval, Jorge Rigaud, (more)
- 1943
The title of this Argentine romantic comedy translates as When the Orange Tree Flowers. The plot concerns an impressionable student (Maria Duval) in a girl's boarding school, who falls in love with her handsome professor. After the teacher relates the legend of a couple whose marriage was forestalled by tragedy, the girl believes herself to be the reincarnation of the woman in the story. She intends to "cast" the professor as the other character in the legend, but he has problems of his own -- namely, an impregnated lady friend who claims that he's the daddy. Alternately warmly funny and stickily sentimental, Cuando Florezca el Naranjo was just what Latin American audiences of the 1940s craved. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Angel Magana, Maria Duval, (more)
- 1943
La Novia de Primavera (Spring Bride) was based on the popular Argentine radio serial of the same name. Maria Duval stars as the title character -- or at least she poses as that character. To impress friends and family, Duval pretends to be the fiancee of best-selling author Roberto Airaldi. When Airaldi shows up in town, he good-naturedly agrees to keep up the pretense, with amusing if predictable results. La Novia de Primavera appealed most to fans of the original radio show, of which there were precious few outside of Argentina. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Maria Duval, Roberto Airaldi, (more)
- 1943
The Valle Negro (Dark Valley) is an Argentine ranching community plagued by a long-standing family feud. The sister of one of the ranchers breaks tradition by romancing the son of the rival family. When the girl has a baby, she leaves the child with her lover, swearing him to secrecy. This incident sparks a series of dramatic consequences, culminating in an ending that is no way either happy nor satisfying. Of the large cast, Maria Duval gives a powerful performance as the ill-fated heroine, while Nelida Bilbao steals every scene she's in as the girl's aunt. Valle Negro is based on a novel by Hugo Wast. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Maria Duval
- 1943
It took two directors to bring this lightweight Cinderella story to life. Musical favorite Maria Duval plays an orphaned girl who has grown up in servitude to a wealthy family. All the while, the master of the house has harbored an unrequited love for the girl. When Duval inherits a fortune from an unexpected source, she is at last in a proper social position to marry her master, but now he is less wealthy than she, and too proud to ask for her hand. While things don't end too happily romantically, at least Duval is given a chance at launching the singing career she has always wanted. The English-language title of Casi un Sueño is Almost a Dream. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Maria Duval, Miguel Gomez Bao, (more)
- 1942
The English-language title of this Argentine drama is Ashes to the Wind. Presumably answering those critics who felt that neutral Argentina was much too friendly towards Nazi Germany during WWII, the film is a flat-out paean to democracy. Luis Arata stars as a newspaper editor who discovers that his publication is being used as a conduit for pro-Axis propaganda. Searching for the source of this drivel, he finds that it was written by his own son (Oscar Valicelli). To make amends, Arata rallies his readers in support of a shipload of European refugees who've been refused safe harbor in Argentina. Several screenwriters, all of them prominent in South American literary circles, were credited for the story and dialogue of Ceniza al Viento. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Pedro Lopez Lagar, Maria Duval, (more)
- 1942
The time-honored "Cinderella" legend is once more updated in the Argentine romantic comedy Su Primer Baile (Her First Ball). Maria Duval stars as an orphaned 18-year-old who is brought into the mansion of wealthy Ernesto Vilches. Duval has been coached to claim that she is Vilches' granddaughter as part of a shakedown scheme. But our heroine is too honest and virtuous to sustain the lie, and she resolves to confess all to the old man. She changes her mind when she realizes that she truly loves Vilches, and would sooner die than break his heart. As luck would have it, it is the con artists who are left out in the cold when it turns out that Duval is genuinely Vilches' granddaughter after all! Some American critics opined that Su Primer Baile was heavily influenced by the popular Deanna Durbin vehicles then emanating from Hollywood. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Maria Duval, Esteban Serrador, (more)
