Criado malcriado, El (1969)
Directed by
Francisco del Villar
Writing credits
Fernando Galiana (adaptation)
Carlos Noriega (story)
Divertida comedia donde Pablo,
despues de pasar por un fustrado asalto a un banco, es atropellado por un joven
que lo llevó a la casa de su supuesta tía, a curarlo, posteriormente para una
serie de aventuras con esta familia, involucrandose en otras divertidas
situaciones.
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NOTES: this film is prime Mauricio Garcés from his period of greatest
popularity, and while the basic plot concept was borrowed from My Man Godfrey
and had already been used for Escuela de vagabundos (with Pedro Infante) and
Qué hombre tan sin embargo (with Piporro), the picture is generally enjoyable
and funny. Garcés gets to show off his whole bag of tricks, alternately
acting suave, coy, cowardly, macho, and so forth. Galiana's script contains
some sharp dialogue, and the supporting cast is quite good. The only stumbling
blocks are a few scenes and characters who try to be too "wacky," and
wind up looking silly instead.
El criado malcriado
[The Uncouth Servant]
(América Films, 1968) Exec Prod: Luis García de León; Prod: Fernando de Fuentes [hijo]; Dir: Francisco del Villar; Scr: Fernando Galiana; Story: C. Noriega; Photo: Javier Cruz; Music: Enrico C. Cabiati; Asst Dir: Fernando Durán; Film Ed: Max Sánchez M.; Art Dir: José Méndez, Octavio Ocampo; Camera Op: Douglas Sandoval; Makeup: Graciela Muñoz; Dialog Rec: Consuelo J. Rendón; Rec/Re-rec: Heinrich Henkel; Union: STIC; Division Color
CAST: Mauricio Garcés (Pablo Namnun), Rosa María Vázquez (Ana), Amadee
Chabot (Bernarda), Enrique Rambal (Servando), Gloria Marín (Esperanza), Miguel
Angel Alvarez "El Men" (Detective Martínez), Susana Cabrera (Susana),
Jorge Lavat (Alejandro), Andrés Soler (General Fernando Reyes), Horacio Salinas
(El Rebelde), Irlanda Mora (Lulis), Carlos Riquelme (don Carlos Beltrán),
Trosky [sic] ("Escorpión, robber), Federico González (robber), Frankestein
("Leo," robber), Mary Carmen Serralde [ aka Carmen Serral] (woman in
bathing suit), Armando Costa [sic = Acosta] (Cmdte. of police), Mario González
(cab driver)
Episode 1: "El gran
robo"
Four men with stockings
over their faces enter a bank intending to rob it. However, the whole caper
goes wrong: instead of disabling the alarm, they set it off; the explosives to
blow the safe are detonated prematurely; the police arrive promptly. However,
in the confusion the leader of the gang manages to escape in a white VW Beetle,
which is the subject of a widespread police dragnet. The three captured robbers
claim they never knew their boss: each one gives a completely different
description. Detective Martínez is assigned to the case.
The fleeing robber drives
into the countryside and burns the Beetle. As he is walking through a forest,
he hears the roaring of an engine and a chilling war cry--a man (wearing a
spiked German helmet) on a motorcycle pursues him, until the robber finally
collapses. He wakes up in bed, attended by Susana the maid. The lady of the
house, Esperanza, arrives. The robber introduces himself as "Pedro
Namnun."
Esperanza: "Of the
Puebla Namnuns?"
"No," Pedro says, "of the North Pole Namnuns. My father was
Lebanese and my mother was an Eskimo." The man on the motorcycle is El
Rebelde, Esperanza's nephew. He wants to be a juvenile delinquent and "his
goal is to die in the electric chair," Esperanza tells Pedro.
Pedro: "I hope he
succeeds."
Pedro is hired to serve as
the family's cook, chauffeur, etc. Their previous servant has just departed,
taking various articles of value. The other residents of the house include
Esperanza's attractive daughter Ana, the blonde artist Bernarda, Bernarda's
father General Fernando Reyes (a former member of Villa's army), El Rebelde,
and Servando, Esperanza's husband. However, Esperanza says she's really a
widow: one day she decided Servando was dead to her, she mourned him for three
months and now treats him like a stranger!
Pedro tells Esperanza he was a monk in Tibet, a hippie in San Francisco, a KKK
member in New Orleans, and a high diver in Acapulco (among other things). He
doesn't get along well with the spoiled Ana or Servando, but Bernarda
constantly flirts with him. Pedro's first "international" meal
includes Japanese ant soup (he squashes one of the ants that tries to escape).
Episode 2: "Un ladrón en mi
alcoba"
That night, Bernarda comes
into Pedro's room, unannounced.
Pedro: "Why didn't you
knock--I might have been nude."
Bernarda: "Some other
time [for that]. Do you dye your hair gray to appear more interesting, or have
you had an operation on your wrinkles to appear younger?"
Pedro: "How old do I
look?"
Bernarda: "You could
be a badly-used-up 25 years old, or a well-preserved 45."
They are about to kiss when
the lights of a car shine through the window. This marks the arrival of
Alejandro, a young man who is bringing Ana back from a date. He tries to kiss
the unwilling young woman, but they are interrupted by Pablo, who shows up in a
night watchman's uniform. Pablo: "Can I stay and watch? I'm crazy to find
out if you'll kiss her, or if she'll knock you out." After Alejandro
leaves in a huff, Ana grudgingly thanks Pablo for his assistance.
The next morning, Pablo
brings Ana breakfast in bed. Half-asleep, she mistakes him for the former cook,
Clementina, and asks him to rub her back. When she realizes her mistake, she
orders Pablo out of the room, but then hesitates and asks if he can drive a
boat. "Naturally I can drive a boat," he replies, "And jets. And
spaceships, Russian and American." Ana says to meet her at the dock later.
[This is a very amusing scene. When Pablo first enters the darkened room, he
picks up Ana's panties from a chair and puts them on his head! He also uses her
bra like a blindfold. The timing is excellent and the dialogue exchanges
between Garcés and Rosa Ma. Vázquez are very sharp; at the end of the scene,
when Pablo asks "Don't you want me to help you get dressed?" Ana
throws a pillow at him, again with perfect timing.]
Pablo drives the family
speedboat while Ana waterskis (on Lake Tequesquitengo). Later, he and Ana watch
Alejandro shoot skeet at a nearby club. Pablo bets Alejandro he can outshoot
him: if Pablo wins, he gets a kiss from Ana; if he loses, he'll quit at once. Of
course, Pablo wins (shooting from the hip without even looking), but tells Ana
he'll claim his prize later.
That night, a tipsy don
Servando comes home in a cab. He offers to play cards with the cabbie for the
fare, but Pablo steps in when he sees the cab driver cheating. After helping
don Servando inside, Pablo and Ana kiss.
Episode 3: "Raffles
70"
The next morning, the
family is having breakfast by the pool. Bernarda emerges from the water in a
brief bikini, and asks Pablo dry her back. When Ana crossly orders him to serve
breakfast "and save the massages for later," Pablo turns to Bernarda
and says he'll continue "later--without a towel." He also imitates a
bullfighter and decoys the obnoxious El Rebelde into driving his motorcycle
into the pool, to the delight of the rest of the family. Servando says a
prospective business partner, don Carlos Beltrán, will be coming for dinner
that day.
Detective Martínez shows
up, disguised as a waiter to work on the dinner party. He takes pictures of
Pablo with a little spy camera (the burned-out VW has finally been located
nearby). As Pablo is cooking "jamón a la Vietnam" (there is a puff of
smoke and flame from the pan), he sings a song "García de León se llamaba"
("He was called García de León"--obviously an in-joke referring to
executive producer Luis García de León). Bernarda comes in, her face painted in
psychedelic designs, and asks Pablo to marry her ("I'll give you many
psychedelic children"). Ana shows up as they are kissing, and calls Pablo
a "Monster!"
Pablo: "Yes, I was
once a vampire in Transylvania."
Bernarda: "Since
you're a vampire, bite me" (she exposes her neck, and he does)
Don Carlos and his blonde
daughter Lulis arrive. They don't realize Pablo is a servant, and Lulis is
instantly attracted to him.
Carlos: "My daughter's
like that, campechana [which means "frank," or "open," but
could also mean a woman from Campeche]. And you?"
Esperanza: "No, I'm
moreliana [from Morelia]."
Lulis asks Pablo who he is.
Pablo: "A man who's neither too young nor too old; not too handsome nor
too ugly; a man with a long past but even more of a future." "This
man's enchanting," Lulis tells her father, "buy him for me."
The dinner goes well, and Pablo
convinces don Carlos to invest in Servando's business. However, Martínez shows
the photos he took to Pablo's incarcerated partners, and they identify him as
the mastermind behind the robbery. The police show up at the house to arrest
Pablo. Ana, who admits she is in love with Pablo, says don Carlos (who happens
to own the bank that was almost robbed) will drop the charges, but Martínez
says Pablo will still have to serve some time in prison (Pablo said the one
thing he had never been was a bank robber, and he just wanted to try it). At
that, Ana punches the detective. As the film ends, Ana and Pablo are sharing a
jail cell, and they embrace.
El criado malcriado isn't a
perfect movie but it is consistently amusing and has few slow spots. Garcés, as
noted above, is in top form, snapping off his lines with gusto, and
embellishing them with his repertoire of grimaces, sly looks, smirks, etc. Rosa
María Vázquez is mostly decorative, although she is perfectly adequate in her
role, while Gloria Marín does a good job as the slightly-addled Esperanza. Enrique
Rambal has mostly a straight role, although his drunk scene lets him loosen up
a bit, and Andrés Soler is his usual self albeit in a fairly small role. Miguel
Angel Alvarez overacts as he usually does in comedies, and the trio of bank
robbers--Trotsky, Federico González, and Frankestein--act like they are drunk,
high, or mentally deficient in their scenes, giggling and smirking.
Amedee Chabot is definitely
secondary to Rosa María Vázquez, but she makes the most of her scenes. The
dubbing of Chabot's dialogue is especially good, matching her lip movements
almost perfectly and--perhaps because she's playing a Mexican rather than a
gringa--her voice seems a little more natural than usual (in some films she's
dubbed to sound rather like Marilyn Monroe). She also looks great, although (in
a shocking departure from the norm), she only appears in a bikini once (most of
the time she's wearing voluminous artist's smocks and berets)!
Certainly highly
recommended for Garcés fans, and generally recommended overall.
garces.htm
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Genre: Comedy
User Rating: awaiting 5
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Cast overview, first billed
only:
Mauricio Garcés .... Pablo
Namnun
Rosa María Vázquez .... Ana
Amadee Chabot .... Bernarda
Enrique Rambal .... Servando
Gloria Marín .... Esperanza
Miguel Ángel Álvarez 'El Men' .... Detective Martinez
Susana Cabrera .... Susanita, criada
Jorge Lavat .... Alejandro
Andrés Soler .... General Fernando Reyes
Horácio Salinas .... El Rebelde
Irlanda Mora .... Lulis
Carlos Riquelme .... Don Carlos
José Luis Aguirre .... Escorpion, ratero
Federico González .... Ratero gordo
Nathanael León .... Leo, ratero
(more)
Runtime: 90 min
Country: Mexico
Language: Spanish
Color: Color (Eastmancolor)
Sound Mix: Mono
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