Cantinflas

Mario Moreno works in tent theatres in the provinces. He goes on stage and forgets his lines; he keeps talking, but what he says means nothing. The house laughs. A character is born that night: Cantinflas, the man who talks a great deal and says nothing. Years pass and he becomes Mexico's best known actor. At the same time a producer in Hollywood is stuck; Mike Todd wants to make Around the World in Eighty Days and nobody will give him the money. Todd goes to Mexico. The two stories tie together. Sebastián del Amo directs. Óscar Jaenada plays Mario Moreno; Michael Imperioli, Luis Gerardo Méndez and Ilse Salas are in the cast. It is a Mexican production. The narrative runs on two planes of time; Moreno's rise and Todd's struggle to make his film alternate. Cantinflas also created a way of speaking in Mexico; fluent talk that means nothing was named after him. Óscar Jaenada is a Spanish actor and worked on a Mexican accent for the part. The film was submitted as Mexico's entry for the Oscar. The matter it treats is a popular comedian changing class; the higher Moreno rises the further he gets from his first audience. The film refers to film history and shows the studio system of the period. Its limit is method; the biography runs flat, the two lines are unbalanced, and the narrative stays on the surface. Who it is for: viewers who like Mexican cinema and actors' biographies. Who it is not for: it is conventional, in pieces, and the ending celebratory.