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DVD TV Show Reviews
Los tres Huastecos was made in 1948. I'm not quite sure why this
DVD is a "50th anniversary" edition, since that would be 9 years ago....but it's
a great old movie and I'm glad that they finally put it on DVD, with English
subtitles. I confess that I know nothing about the history of Mexican cinema,
but I read that this is a classic.
It stars Pedro INfante, who plays three different characters. He plays triplets.
One becomes a priest, one a soldier, and one a gambler/bandit. They are from the
state of Huasteca, which is why the title is "The Three Huastecos". The priest
and gambler live in neighboring towns but never visit each other. The priest
doesn't want to deal with the gambler because he deals in sin, and the gambler
doesn't want to deal with the priest because he thinks he's a fool. The soldier
arrives to take over the local army post, so the three are reunited (although
not at first). Meanwhile, there is a young girl there who is looking for her
true love, and she wants to have a baby. She is clearly smitten with the priest,
who is handsome, but when his soldier brother arrives in town, she becomes
infatuated with him instead. Since this is 1948, when he flirts with her and
makes passes at her, she has to rebuff him. That is the love story of the movie.
The comedy mostly comes from the priest's fat aide, Coco, who sings badly, makes
terrible jokes, steals from the church, and in general is a complete idiot.
Also, the gambler has a little girl, who is very funny and cute to watch. She
would be cute enough on her own, but since this "bad guy" is raising her, she is
a total brat who plays with spiders and snakes, smacks her daddy's servant
around, and threatens to kill people. The little girl is someone who, in real
life, you would want to spank her, but in the movie she is adorable.
The drama comes from the evil "Coyote" bandit who is killing some of the
townspeople. That story gets rather complex. It drives most of the story about
the brothers. I can't tell you too much or it would ruin things for you. There
is even a scifi/fantasy element to the story. Because the brothers are triplets,
sometimes when one is feeling something, the other two feel it as well. They
don't spend too much time on this, however, so that is a shame. They were
probably afraid to do much of that sort of thing back then.
The story has lots of singing and dancing. Some movies might not work having all
these elements together (romance, scifi, drama, comedy, and music), but this one
somehow does. It is not a short movie, running the full two hours, and anyone
who is used to today's
fast-paced films and TV might find it a little slow. Regardless, I enjoyed
watching it, and I got into the story. Most of the music and singing is very
good (I'm sure it was dubbed).
There are some interesting behind-the-scenes features. Unfortunately, these are
not subtitled, so I can only guess what they are about. That is common on DVD's,
unfortunately, even in the US. One feature seems to be some sort of promotional
piece that has the actors, directors et al. interacting and talking about the
film. There are the usual photos and info about the actors, a list of the songs,
and trailers. I think that for something that's this old, they did a pretty good
job with it.
Anyone who enjoys old movies, or film in general, or Mexican films, should enjoy
this.
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