Pedro Armendáriz

David Melville writes —

Fans of old Hollywood may remember Dolores del Rio as a ravishing beauty who couldn’t act. Moving from Mexico to the US in the late 20s, she played decorative roles in largely mediocre films. Even the classic South Seas romance Bird of Paradise (King Vidor, 1932) used her less as an actress than as a live Gauguin painting. The musical Wonder Bar (Lloyd Bacon, 1934) gave her little to do beyond a sadomasochist tango with whips. By the early 40s, not even her liaison with Orson Welles could get Dolores a role in a decent film.Read More »

On a small Mexican island dwells a group of Indians who live in the traditional manner and who disdain outsiders. The beautiful Maclovia and the poverty-stricken Jose Maria are in love, but her father refuses to allow their marriage, or even any communication between them, due to Jose Maria’s lack of means. The young man strives to educate himself and earn enough to purchase his own fishing boat in order to win her father’s favor. At the same time, a batallion of soldiers is posted there, and the brutal sergeant develops eyes for Maclovia. The conflicts come to a head on the Night of the Dead. Written by GoblinHairedGuyRead More »

A logging camp, deep in the Mexican jungle is the setting for this dark, cataclysmic drama. A man and his family go to work in a mahogany camp, only to find themselves and their coworkers treated as semi-slave laborers and the recipients of beatings and brutal punishments. Pushed to the brink of fury, the man decides the only way out for himself, and his coworkers, is for him to lead them in a violent and bloody revolt against their oppressors.Read More »

In Mexican Revolution times, a guerrilla general and his troops take the conservative town of Cholula, near by Mexico City. As the revolutionaries mistreat the town’s riches, Armendáriz falls for beautiful and wild Beatriz Peñafiel, the daughter of one of the town’s richest men.Read More »

Cardoza’s death, a candidate for mayor of a village chief enemy and Rosauro Castro, leads to Mr. Garcia Mata to undertake an investigation. Upon arriving realizes that even the whole town, including the mayor, lives in fear by the chief and only achieved revenge end the injustices committed by Rosauro Castro.Read More »

Dolores Del Rio plays the indigenous daughter of a prostitute, and nobody in her village will buy the flowers she sells because of her family’s sordid history. The corrupt racist local merchant whose lecherous advances she keeps turning down demands that she pay her debts in full by tomorrow or else he’ll take her beloved little piglet! It is one of two Mexican films ever to win the Palme d’Or (the other being Buñuel’s Viridiana).Read More »

Captain Sindbad was based on an Arabian Nights story, was filmed in Germany, and starred an American leading man (Guy Williams), a German leading lady (Heidi Bruhl) and a Mexican villain (Pedro Armendariz). How’s that for cultural diversity? Anyway, the story involves Sindbad’s (Williams) efforts to enter the impenetrable castle where the evil El Kerim’s (Armendariz) heart is being kept. So long as his heart is outside his body, El Kerim is invulnerable, enabling him to be as wicked and despotic as he chooses. Sindbad comes to the rescue just seconds before the heroine (Bruhl) is about to be crushed to death by an elephant. Despite the mortality rate on both sides, Captain Sindbad is pure kiddie-matinee stuff, adroitly put together by director/cinematographer Byron (War of the Worlds) Haskin and boasting top-notch special effects. allmovieRead More »

In ancient times, the Mongolian warlord Temujin must do battle against the rival tribe that killed his father. The battles pale in comparison with Temujin’s home life, as he attempts to woo the heart of the red-haired Tartar prisoner Bortai whom he has captured in a raid. He must also deal with various intrigues within his palace. Eventually, Bortai falls to his manly charms, Temujin defeats his enemies within and without, and is crowned Genghis Khan.Read More »

Museum of Modern Art writes:
In 1946, John Ford effectively took over the crew of his friend and fellow spirit Fernández—including stars Dolores del Río, Pedro Armendáriz, and Miguel Inclán, and cinematographer Gabriel Figueroa—and, with Fernández acting as his “first lieutenant,” filmed this abstract, ambitious work on locations in Mexico and at the Churubusco Studios. Ostensibly an adaptation of Graham Greene’s unfilmably scandalous The Power and the Glory, it derives many of its plot points from Ford’s 1935 The Informer, though the film’s ultimate subject is the Mexican landscape, as explored in all of its compositional possibilities by the incomparable duo of Ford and Figueroa.Read More »