The Kneeling Goddess

Antonio, a millionaire, gives his wife a statue of a naked kneeling woman for their wedding anniversary. His wife Elena is pleased with the gift; what she does not know is that the woman who modelled for it, Raquel, is her husband's lover. Raquel wants him to divorce, and Antonio is caught between two lives. Not long afterwards there is a death nobody can explain. Roberto Gavaldón's film comes from the dark melodrama strand of Mexican cinema's golden age and was adapted from a novel by Ladislas Fodor. Desire, art and crime gather into the same image, and the statue stands in every scene like a witness. María Félix plays a woman using her own power against the men who turn her into an image. The film broke box office records that year by staying nine weeks in cinemas.