Enrique Rambal Movies

The Mexican horrorama Man and the Monster is yet another wrinkle on the Faust story. A concert pianist, desirous of international fame, sells his soul to the devil. Satan's price: whenever the pianist plays a particular selection, he turns into a monster. After a string of brutal murders perpetrated by this musical Jekyll/Hyde, he is foiled by a quickwitted concert master. When the orchestra strikes up the fatal tune, the pianist goes through his slavering metamorphosis before a packed audience, who presumably spend the rest of the evening paging through their programs to see if the monster is a hitherto unannounced guest artist. Abel Salazer produced, wrote and starred in Man and the Monster, which was originally titled El Hombre Y El Monstruo. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

This well-balanced film is based on the life of Jose Mojica (Pedro Geraldo), a Mexican entertainer who gave up the stage for a monk's robe and tonsure. As young Mojica's star is rising in the entertainment world he indulges in some very unpleasant personality traits -- a serious ego, arrogance, and unstable temperament plague his relationships. But then circumstances conspire to slowly wake him up, not only making him realize the errors in his attitude and behavior, but bringing him even further to the conclusion that nothing the material world has to offer is worth it. And so Mojica becomes a Friar, a monk whose life starts to touch others in a meaningful way. Libertad Lamarque plays his mother and equally famous Pedro Armendariz plays a man affected by Mojica. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

The unbeatable combination of both Dolores del Rio and Libertad Lamarque co-starring in this three-hanky melodrama about the self-sacrificing love of a mother makes this otherwise unexceptional film a people's favorite. Lamarque plays the mistress of a married man and del Rio has the role of his wife. After the husband dies in an auto accident, the mistress survives the crash and later gives birth to their son. The grieving widow agrees to adopt the boy as her own -- on the condition that the mistress bow out of the picture completely. She agrees and so it is settled, until many years later when the repenting birth mother wants to get to know her now-grown offspring. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

The great screen surrealist Luis Buñuel co-wrote and directed this dark, bitterly witty satire. A group of people in formal dress arrives at an elegantly appointed home for a dinner party. However, once dinner is over and the guests retire to the drawing room, they discover that the servants have gone away, and for some reason they cannot leave. There is no explanation why -- there are no locked doors or barred windows preventing them from going home -- but the guests are convinced that they're stranded. Left to their own devices, they slowly but gradually degenerate into genteel savagery, taking an axe to a water pipe for drinking water, killing and eating a sheep that was to be part of the post-dinner entertainment, hiding the bodies of dead guests in the closet, dabbling in witchcraft, and burning the furniture. Buñuel's dry, quixotic wit is abundantly displayed in this film. Leading the cast was Silvia Pinal, the renowned actress who starred in several of Buñuel's Mexican films (she was married to noted producer Gustavo Alatriste, who produced several films with Buñuel). Other than the short subject Simon of the Desert, El Angel Exterminador proved to be Buñuel's last film made in his adopted homeland. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

The biblical story Jesus, el Nino Dios offers a look at the birth of Christ from the point of view of the wisemen who followed a star to bring the baby gifts. They encounter King Herod who is consumed with jealousy in regard to the newly born Prince of Peace. ~ Perry Seibert, Rovi

A unique story of a man who has the ability to change the people around him. ~ Rovi