El padrecito

A young priest is posted to a provincial town. The old priest there does not want him; he has his own order and will have nobody interfering. The young man begins to involve himself with the people: he plays football with the children, forms a choir, raises money to repair the church roof and mixes with the young. The town takes to him. The old priest grows more uncomfortable. Then a bullfight is arranged in the town and the young priest has to go into the ring. Miguel M. Delgado directs. Cantinflas takes the lead. Cantinflas is Mexico's best known comedian; his humour rested on a way of speaking, and a verb derived from his name even entered Spanish. The comedy here is largely in the language; the character talks at length and says nothing. That is what is most lost in translation. The subject is the difference between an institution and people; the young priest follows people rather than rules and the film defends that directly. The position of the church in the provinces is criticised, and the register is soft; the film never enters a hard reckoning. It was a large commercial success in Mexico and among the most watched of Cantinflas's films. Who it is for: anyone curious about classic Mexican comedy and Cantinflas. Who it is not for: the humour depends on language, the narrative is episodic, and the emotional register rises toward the end.