Ariadne Welter Movies
- 1986
This low-budget, supernatural, tongue-in-cheek story is about an ancient Egyptian princess out to maintain her immortality. Nefratis (Michelle Bauer) has two problems: her tomb has been desecrated, and she needs some special amulets (now in California) that are used in the rituals of human sacrifice to keep herself alive. After she kills the professor responsible for the sacrilege committed against her tomb, the professor's son David Manners (Richard Alan Hench) and his friend Helen (Susan Stokey) set out to solve the mystery behind the murder. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Cameron Mitchell, John Carradine, (more)
"Lalo el Mimo" or Eduardo de la Peña stars in this unusual comedy as a lottery ticket winner. Instead of investing in stocks or huge houses, Rafael Lara (the character el Mimo plays) has set up four of his friends in auto repair businesses. In addition to that, though, he has a fondness for the ladies, and can't seem to stop marrying them. Before long, he has four wives and four separate (and very elegant) homes for them. Eventually the authorities get wind of these illegal goings on (one wife per customer, please) and put him in jail. However, he has fulfilled the secret dreams of many of those who put him in jail, and he is much admired by them. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Sergio "El Comanche" Ramos, Julio Alvarado, (more)
- 1968
In this Mexican horror movie a scary bloodsucker is loose on the streets of contemporary Mexico and he is trying to con a young woman out of her family fortune. He first tries by charming the girl's vulnerable aunt. Later he buries the girl alive. Thankfully she is saved and soon someone drives a stake through the evil human leech's heart. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
The comedy Esta Noche No tells the tale of a man married to two different women. He goes to great lengths to keep each family in the dark about the other, but all his careful planning unravels one day. When the two women discover what has been going on, they plot their own unique form of revenge. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide
- 1966
This suspenseful drama from Mexican director Gilberto Gazcon stars Glenn Ford as Reuben, a doctor who has accepted a job at a construction site south of the border following the death of his wife during childbirth. Devastated by grief, the widower is also drowning his sorrows in booze. Then a man comes stumbling out of the desert, dying from rabies, and Reuben is bitten by the same rabid dog. After delivering a baby for Pancho (David Reynoso), Reuben takes off on a mad dash across the desert to find medical aid before the rabies kills him in 2-3 days. Accompanied by the grateful Pancho and the beautiful prostitute Perla (Stella Stevens), Reuben suddenly finds himself fighting to live as time runs out. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Glenn Ford, Stella Stevens, (more)
- 1964
Ramon Obon directed this Mexican Gothic horror anthology based on the works of Edgar Allan Poe. "Panico" concerns a man (Joaquin Cordero) who schemes with his mistress to frighten his wife into a heart attack. Ariadna Welter is the terrorized spouse, who later turns the tables on her tormentors. "Miedo Supremo" deals with a doctor (Jorge Martinez de Hoyos) who gets accidentally locked in a cemetery crypt with an insane woman who has been buried alive. Obon, best known for writing the screenplays of such Mexican horror standards as El Vampiro and Misterios de Ultratumba, produces some nice atmospherics and manages to avoid silliness in favor of genuine mood. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide
- 1963
In this children's fantasy a brave little Stinky the Skunk consorts with a wolf to rally the other animals into forming a great bridge to save a lovely princess from the wicked king who kidnapped her and squirreled her away in his magic kingdom. ~ Sandra Brennan, 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 mystery woman leads an ordinary man down an evil path in this intriguing horror story. Rick Turner (Robert Alda) is a man haunted by a recurring dream in which a beautiful woman in a flowing white gown dances for him. The dream is robbing Rick of his sleep and driving a wedge between him and his fiancée Donna (Ariadna Welter), so he's startled when one day he passes a shop window and sees a doll that looks just like the woman in his dreams. The owner of the shop, Frank Lamont (Neil Hamilton), informs Rick that the doll was custom-made for a client, and Rick arranges to deliver it to her himself. Rick arrives at the luxurious apartment of Bianca (Linda Christian) to discover she is the very image of the woman in his dream, and she appears to know him already. Rick learns that both Bianca and Frank are members of a mysterious satanic cult that uses the dolls as part of their ceremonies; Rick becomes a regular visitor to their meetings and becomes deeply involved with Bianca after Donna is suddenly bedridden. But does Bianca have a plan for Rick that he doesn't yet suspect? The Devil's Hand was also released under the title Live To Love. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- 1961
When Carlos Thompson begins killing miners following the murder of his wife by a miner, Charles
Fawcett and his Texas Rangers halt the killing spree. ~ All Movie Guide
Fawcett and his Texas Rangers halt the killing spree. ~ All Movie Guide
This outrageous Mexican horror gem opens in the 17th century, where Spanish Baron Vitelius is being sentenced to death for heresy, thanks to his reputation as a Casanova and practitioner of the black arts. Before his death, he curses the bloodlines of the Inquisitors -- a curse heralded by the appearance of a comet, which Vitelius declares will mark his vengeance when it passes again. Flash forward 300 years to the swinging '60s, where the comet does more than just appear in the sky -- it slams into the Earth, releasing a brain-sucking demon with a forked tongue, which then transforms into the shape of Vitelius. The Baron heads to town and immediately goes to work on the locals, inviting them to a party where he manages to identify and list the Inquisitors' descendants in order to plan his revenge. Seeking them out one by one, he sucks their brains dry with his spiked tongue, then burns their bodies. When the police eventually discover Vitelius' secret stash of human brains, they manage to track him down and destroy him before he claims his last victim. Despite laughably bad dubbing that turns every character into a complete moron, this is still a clever little no-budget film, filled with wild imagery and goofy monster effects (e.g. the demon's rubber head occasionally swells and deflates via air-hose). Released theatrically in Mexico, this film saw its American debut on television and soon became a late-night creature-feature favorite. ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Abel Salazar
- 1959
The dark side of American society is emphasized in this standard Mexican melodrama about a family from south of the border, living just north of that dividing line. The paterfamilias is lonesome and nostalgic for his old home, not an uncommon reaction for anyone living outside their country. But the problems of adjusting to a new culture are multiple -- one of the sons in the family successfully battled alcoholism, another is dropping out by dealing in drugs, and the daughter has reasoned that her best bet out of a life of poverty is to make a good marriage. She is not the first woman in the world to get that idea, and what happens to her is a classic tale -after her Caucasian boyfriend tires of their relationship, he dumps her for greener pastures. Unremittingly downbeat, the moral seems to be that a poor Hispanic family in the U.S. has the odds stacked against them for a variety of reasons. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Pedro Armendáriz, Ariadne Welter, (more)
- 1957
In this sequel to the Mexican horror movie The Vampire, the villainous Hungarian Count Duval rises again after a servant pulls the stake out of his heart. Upon resuscitation, the bloodsucking blueblood becomes a bat. Soon he is wreaking bloody havoc upon the hapless Mexican people. ~ Iotis Erlewine, All Movie Guide
- 1956
This jungle adventure is set deep within the thick selva of Vera Cruz where a handsome explorer leads an expedition to search for the plants needed to make cortisone, the newly discovered cure for gout and rheumatoid arthritis. During the hunt, they run across an eccentric man and his lovely jungle daughter. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
Taking a brief respite from his Hollywood career, Ricardo Montalban essays a role in his native language in the Mexican Sombra Verde (Green Shadow). Montalban plays an adventurous young chemist who goes on a scientific expedition in the tropical regions of Vera Cruz. After battling all sorts of natural enemies, Montalban comes face to face with a human foe, fugitive-from-justice Victor Parra. The two men come to blows when our hero falls in love with Parra's provocatively garbed daughter Ariadna Welter. Incidentally, the film's leading lady was the sister of actress Linda Christian, then the wife of Tyrone Power. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ricardo Montalban, Ariadne Welter, (more)
- 1955
This Mexican-filmed black comedy (distributed in the U.S. seven years after its initial 1955 release date) is one of the minor but no less characteristic works of director Luis Buñuel. The film begins with Archibaldo (Ernesto Alonso) being triggered by a music box into a lengthy reminiscence of his childhood. It was an average, everyday incident, one that undoubtedly has occurred to us all: Archibaldo was caught dressing up in his mother's clothes by his governess, who was then instantly killed by a revolutionary's bullet before she could tell on him. The experience proved to be Archibaldo's "first rush," and he spends the rest of his life trying to re-create the sexual euphoria of that moment -- by murdering attractive women. Buñuel's characteristic perverse black humor then adds a twist, which prevents Archibaldo from fulfilling his desires. Perverse, but darkly funny, Ensayo de un Crimen is a slyly shocking delight. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ernesto Alonso, Ariadne Welter, (more)
