If the Gringos have their movies like "The Alamo" or "One man's hero", there's is little Mexican film with then (by 1939) huge popular actor and singer Jorge Negrete, about the Mexican-American war: "El cementerio de las Aguilas". I saw this film on Mexican syndicated television when I was 10 o 11 years old. Filled with historical inequalities (from the point of view of the parallel story of boy hero Agustín Melgar) ,is a patriotic drama, that tells the story of Miguel de la Peña and friend teenager Agustin Melgar, a middle class man and a poor class boy who are in love with a pair of aristocratic "criollas" Mercedes and Ana Maria in the year 1846, just as the Mexican-American war begun. De la Peña enrolls with the Mexican army (the infamous and traitor Polkos Battalion) just as the North American armies approach the nearing of Mexico City, because he wants to give some time to his relationships to a divorceé and Mercedes. Meanwhile Melgar is studying in the famous military college at Chapultepec but the love for Ana María and the desire to marry her, make him desert the military . The father of ana maria scolds him and Melgar leave in dispair. Just as the enemy forces approach, and trying to emulate de la Peña, Melgar returns to the college to fight with their comrades and defeat the enemy. From then on, the story tells us the heroic deaths of the six boy heroes, counting Melgar at the Chapultepec Battle in Sept. 13 1847. If you want to see the Mexican point of view of the Mexican-American war you must see this film. Is quite good, aside the soap opera melodramatic love story that never fails in Mexican cinema (principally in the Negrete's films).
