It really makes me sad when I see some forgotten movie that no one ever saw. And then you see ONE review... Somebody SAW that movie and after enjoying it wrote a review!! Of course, after reading such review I HAD to watch that movie!! And here I'm writing the SECOND review (who knows, one day we may have several reviews for a movie that isn't bad at all).
But first, in order to understand why so many people stay away from these old films I must transfer these (FEW) lines from a long and fascinating article that appeared today in the Huffpost Create Post --12 January 2015-- and here they are:
"Why the Big New Trend in Tech Might Be...: In a recent study, more than half of adults in the UK said that they would stop eating (77%), talking (60%), working (60%), and sleeping (58 %), to answer their mobile phone. Now Apple, Google, Samsung et al want to strap a watch to your wrist and make it buzz every time you have a missed call, email or text message."
OK, I intersected that information from our PRESENT DAY to contrast what an old film (1951) could seem to the younger generation almost an alien product, and indeed, one has to make a very hard mental accommodation to get INTO that story, those characters and their surroundings.
Everything looks extremely outmoded, from men's suits (it goes without saying women's clothes), cars, street life, night life, the prostitution business, friendship, motherhood, sisterhood, etc.
The funny thing is that in a very few minutes into this film, one forgets those trivialities and it really GRABS ONE and doesn't let go till the bitter end!!
You'll find the morals totally outdated, the immersion of these poor people into religion incredibly present in their lives and the concept of right and wrong as hardly compartmentalized as their religious rules dictated at the time (at least in Mexico).
But again, glide over those nowadays fortunately surpassed prejudices and watch the story (fascinating story, by one of the greatest masters of the universal literature: Fydor Mikhailovitch Dostoevsky) very well translated to the screen and artfully acted by the whole cast (another thing to remember: The acting was Mexican, and as it was the case with the Argentinian movies, they were a bit excessive in showing their emotions (until the 60s?)... and specially the Anglo-Saxon may find it a bit disconcerting).
As far as I'm concerned... I LOVED IT, I LOVED IT, I LOOOVED IIIIT!!!