Rosaura Revueltas Movies
Rosaura Revueltas is best-remembered for her powerful performance as an illegal Mexican immigrant who helped support striking salt miners in Salt of the Earth (1954). The movie caused quite a bit of controversy, not only for its socialist undertones, but for the fact that most of those involved with making the film had been blacklisted. During production, Revueltas was labeled a Communist and deported. Prior to this, Revueltas had appeared in Isla Marias (Marias Island) and Muchachas de Uniforme (Girls in Uniform) (both 1950). Upon her return to Mexico, Revueltas took drama classes and wrote plays. Between 1957 and 1960, she lived in Germany and worked alongside noted playwright Bertolt Brecht. Later in life, she became a yoga and dance teacher. She also wrote a book, The Revueltas. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide- 1977
As Spanish power waned in Europe, one of the favored games of European powers was to replace one Spanish king with another. By the time of Napoleon, the Spanish monarch was Fernando VII (1784-1833), who held and lost that throne many times at the whim of his father, Napoleon, European powers, and the Spanish people themselves. This epic war film tells of the exploits of Mina (Jose Alonzo), a Spanish guerrilla who fought against Napoleon and later struggled against Fernando VII in Mexico, as that nation fought for independence. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- José Alonso, Pedro Armendariz, Jr., (more)
Though it cannot help but lapse into dogma and didactics at times, Salt of the Earth is a powerful, persuasive labor-management drama. With the exception of five actors (including future Waltons star Will Geer), the cast is comprised of non-professionals, mostly participants of the real-life strike action upon which the film is based. Set in a New Mexico mining town, the film concerns the measures taken by the largely Hispanic union to improve working and especially living conditions for the poverty-stricken workers. Remarkably prescient, given that the film was made long before the women's movement, is the fact that it is the wives who keep the strike alive while their husbands are beaten and otherwise oppressed by the owners. Not that the miners wholeheartedly accept this; one of the script's many on-target observations shows the macho workers resenting their wives' intervention. The ultimate victory over the strikebreakers (led by Geer at his most odious) comes about as much from male-female solidarity as the workers' pre-set determination. Co-produced by the International Union of Mine, Mill and Smelt Workers, Salt of the Earth was assembled under conditions of extreme duress by a group of Hollywood expatriates, all victims of the Blacklist: producer Paul Jarrico, director Herbert Biberman, screenwriter Michael Wilson and star Will Geer. "Freed" of the strictures of Hollywood pussyfooting and censorship, the film's auteurs are able to explore several subjects previously considered taboo. As a result, Salt of the Earth seems even fresher and more pertinent now than it did when given its extremely limited first release in 1954. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Rosaura Revueltas, Juan Chacón, (more)
- 1953
This tuneful romantic melodrama is set in a tiny Mexican village and is comprised of three storylines. One tale concerns a pair of young lovers from rival villages who will not be able to marry until a long time feud is ended. In another tale, an heir to a large fortune falls in love with an impoverished girl. His family is dead set against the match. When he is diagnosed with a fatal tumor, the man begs the girl to marry him, but she refuses and instead arranges for him to marry another. In the third story, a matador's comely sister falls in love with a street vendor. Unfortunately, the matador hates her beloved and to break them up permanently, slyly convinces the peddler to enter the dangerous bullring. Fortunately for the sister, her brother's scheme fails spectacularly. She then marries the peddler and makes an ironic discovery. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Anna Maria Pier Angeli, Ricardo Montalban, (more)
Las Islas Marias stars Pedro Infante as a man who must face time in jail, even though he never committed the crime. While on the inside, he learns important life lessons that actually make him a better man. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide
