The Second World War benefits Mexican cinema, which supplies the important Spanish-speaking market abandoned by the fighting powers. In 1945, Mexico produced more than eighty films. That’s when the “golden age” of Mexican cinema begins. Now you will be able to watch all of them in free movies online.
The Great Films
The great man of this period, who for a long time will be the symbol of Mexican cinema for the public of the whole world, is Emilio Fernández, known as “el Indio” (the Indian) because of his origins. He is strongly influenced by Eisenstein, but also by “muralism”, which draws its sources in pre-Columbian art and aims at a “monumental, heroic, human and popular” art, and “indigenism”, a firm will to express the cultural reality of Mexico. In 1934, he played the leading role of Carlos Navarro’s highly “indigenous” Janitzio, influenced by the aesthetics of Eisenstein and Robert Flaherty.
The title of his second film as director, I am purely Mexican (Soy puro mexicano, 1942), sets out the central theme of the forty or so films that he will perform until 1976. It combines a popular sensibility that makes him choose melodramatic themes with torn couples, sacrificed mothers and prostitutes, and the elaborate photographic and plastic style of the operator Gabriel Figueroa, who sometimes touches on hieraticism.
His films include The Hurricane , (Flor Silvestre, 1943), María Candelaria (1943), twice awarded at Cannes in 1946, The Abandoned (Las Abandonadas, 1944), The Pearl (La Perla, 1945), Enamorada ( 1946). Its success declines from the failure of the File (La Red, 1953), which remains famous for its bold erotic symbolism. He will continue his career as an actor.
The Star System
It is a true Mexican star-system which is then constituted, with stars like María Félix, who starts in 1942 in Miguel Zacarías’ El peñón de las ánimas , then collaborates with Emilio Fernández, knows his best role in Doña Bárbara (1943 ) of Fernando de Fuentes, and later found in a film by Luis Buñuel, The fever goes up to El Pao (1959) and in French Cancan (1954) by Jean Renoir.
- Heroine of Hurricane and María Candelaria, Dolores del Rio, already had in 1943 an important Hollywood career behind her, playing Latin, Indian, Polynesian and Brazilian. It animates with its sensual and sophisticated silhouette as well the Mexican films of Roberto Gavaldón ( Double destiny – Otra, 1946) of Alejandro Galindo ( Doña perfecta , 1950) and Ismael Rodriguez (Cucaracha, 1956) that those of John Ford as God died (1947) and Cheyenne (1966) , visit free movies online for more information .
The handsome mustache Pedro Armendáriz is the most important Mexican star, working frequently with Fernández and collaborating with John Ford for God’s death (The Fugitive, 1947), the Son of the Desert (Three Godfathers, 1948) and the Massacre of Fort Apache ( Fort Apache, 1947).
Apart from comedy ranchera, musical or not, burlesque comedy is dominated by two figures. The most popular, and internationally known because of a Hollywood career, Mexican comic actors is Mario Moreno Reyes, known as Cantinflas, who creates an urban and marginal pariah character, the peladito (el Gendarme desconocido, 1941, by Miguel Delgado) .
