La Llorona (1933 film)

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La Llorona
Directed byRamón Peón
Screenplay by
Story byAntonio Guzmán Aguilera[2]
StarringRamón Pereda
Cinematography[2]
Edited byGuillermo Baqueriza[3]
Production
company
Eco Films[3]
Release date
  • May 25, 1933 (1933-05-25) (Mexico)
Running time
73 minutes[3]
CountryMexico[1]
LanguageSpanish[1]

La Llorona (lit. 'The Crying Woman') is a 1933 Mexican supernatural horror film directed by Ramón Peón and starring Ramón Pereda, Virginia Zurí, Adriana Lamar and Carlos Orellana.

Plot[]

Setting is Mexico. Maria is La Llorana “the crier”

Maria is poor but marries a wealthy man. She is quickly neglected as her husband pays more attention to the two sons than she. Out of a blind, passion filled rage, she drowns her two children.

She then kills herself. Yet she couldn't escape the horrors of what she did. She is trapped between life and death, crying out for her children. As a ghost she searches for the sons she drowned, unable to escape from earth to heaven until she finds them.

Cast[]

Cast adapted from the liner notes of the Indicator home video release of La Llorona.[4]

  • Ramón Pereda as Dr. Ricardo de Acuña / Captain Diego de Acuña
  • Virginia Zurí as Ana Maria de Acuña
  • Carlos Orellana as Mario
  • Adriana Lamar as Ana Xiconténcatl
  • Alberto Martí as Rodrigo de Cortés
  • Esperanza del Real as Nana Goya
  • Paco Martínez as Don Fernando de Moncada
  • María Luisa Zea as Doña Marina
  • Alfredo del Diestro as Chief of Police
  • Antonio Frausto as Francisco
  • Carlos Vallejo Espinal as the voice of La Llorona

Production[]

In the 1930s, a cycle of horror films began.[5] In Mexico, the first sound film was released in 1932.[6] La Llorona was one of the 21 sound films created in Mexico in 1933.[5] The film's story is based on that of La llorona, a crying woman from Hispanic folklore who mourns her dead child.[7] According to the newspaper El Universal, the filmmakers found difficulty in finding a voice for the ghost that would be convincing and not encourage laughter from the audience.[8] Journalists of the newspaper noted that great expense was made to recreate the sets in the film to represent New Spain.[9]

Release and reception[]

Prior to the films release, Emily Masineup of the Northwestern University stated that the film was highly anticipated due to the number of laudatory articles found and large banner ads found in Mexico prior to its release.[6] La Llorona was released in Mexico on 25 May 1933.[6]

From contemporary reviews, the Mexican newspaper Excélsior who commented that both horror and mystery films were put out to great difficulty noting the special effects involved, but that La Llorona was more impressive as it had to do that and recreate the period film sets. The film was declared the most serious work put out by Mexico's film industry yet. The liner notes of Indicator's blu-ray release stated that the Excélsior review was a typical response to the film as Mexican press found the film technological achievements was met with a sense of national pride. Among the few desenting critics, Chano Urueta of Mundo cinematográfico found that the film trivialized Mexican history to create a Hollywood-like story.[10] Harry T. Smith who reviewed the film in 1935 when it showed at Harlem's Teatro Compoamor, who found the film had "Excellent acting by all the principals" and that "some fine scenes of the Mexico of long ago all make the picture well worth seeing."[11]

Legacy[]

Following the release of La Llorona, Guillermo Calles was selected to direct the short feature La Chillona, a parody of La Llorona.[12][13] The Llorona figure has appeared in several films since the 1933 feature, including dramatic films such as (1947), the Western The Living Coffin (1958), the luchador film (1974) as well as gothic horror films such as La Llorona (1960) and The Curse of the Crying Woman (1961). The character vanished from Mexican cinema for decades only to be resurrected in the new millennium with Kilometer 31 (2006), J-ok'el (2007), and La leyenda de la Llorona (2011).[14]

La Llorona was believed to be lost for nearly half a century.[15] It was uploaded to YouTube from what Emily Masineup of the Northwestern University described as a "poor quality television broadcast".[9] While most films from the Calderón family studio survived from film negatives, La Llorona existed only as a 16 mm print. Peter Conheim of the Cinema Preservation Alliance stated this print was at least three generation removed from the primary source.[15]

References[]

Citations[]

  1. ^ a b La Llorona (Back Cover). Indicator. 2022. PHILTD243.
  2. ^ a b c "Crew". La Llorona (booklet). Indicator. 2022. p. 3. PHILTD243.
  3. ^ a b c "Llorona, La" (in Spanish). National Autonomous University of Mexico. Retrieved May 10, 2016.
  4. ^ "Cast". La Llorona (booklet). Indicator. 2022. p. 2. PHILTD243.
  5. ^ a b Rhodes 2003, p. 94.
  6. ^ a b c Masineup 2022, p. 6.
  7. ^ Rhodes 2003, p. 95.
  8. ^ Masineup 2022, p. 9.
  9. ^ a b Masineup 2022, p. 11.
  10. ^ "Critical Response". La Llorona (booklet). Indicator. 2022. p. 31. PHILTD243.
  11. ^ "Critical Response". La Llorona (booklet). Indicator. 2022. p. 33. PHILTD243.
  12. ^ Agrasánchez, Jr. 2010, p. 102.
  13. ^ Agrasánchez, Jr. 2010, p. 103.
  14. ^ Lindvall 2022, p. 23.
  15. ^ a b Conheim 2022, p. 35.

Sources[]

  • Agrasánchez, Jr., Rogelio (2010). Guillermo Calles: A Biography of the Actor and Mexican Cinema Pioneer. McFarland. ISBN 978-0786456482.
  • Conheim, Peter (2022). "Preserving the Anomalies of La Llorona". La Llorona (booklet). Indicator. PHILTD243.
  • Cotter, Robert Michael Bobb (2005). The Mexican Masked Wrestler and Monster Filmography. McFarland. ISBN 0786441046.
  • Lindvall, Valeria Villegas (2022). "'My Grief Will Not Be Silenced': La Llorana Cry Across the Decades". La Llorona (booklet). Indicator. PHILTD243.
  • Masineup, Emily (2022). "La Llorona and the First Cries of Mexican Horror". La Llorona (booklet). Indicator. PHILTD243.
  • Rhodes, Gary D. (2003). "Fantasmas del cine Mexicano: the 1930s horror film cycle of Mexico". In Schneider, Steven Jay (ed.). Fear Without Frontiers: Horror Cinema Across the Globe. FAB Press. ISBN 1-903254-15-9.


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