By Cesar Arredondo, Guest Columnist
Mario Moreno, “Cantinflas,” is arguably the greatest comedic actor to come out of the Spanish-speaking world.
Now a new film, simply titled, Cantinflas, is running at the Cinemark at the Pike in Long Beach. The film paints a multilayered picture of Moreno. It humanizes the legend and highlights little known aspects of Moreno’s life as a film producer, screenwriter, businessman, labor activist and husband.
Cantinflas, premiered this past August nationwide with a limited release in U.S. cities with large Latino populations. The film is expected to open in Mexico later this month but it already has been selected as that country’s entry for the Oscar in the best foreign language film.
Moreno was already a huge star in his homeland by the time he was introduced to American audiences with the acclaimed 1956 film Around the World in 80 Days, based on Jules Verne’s classic novel of the same title. Moreno plays the lovable Passepartout.
Cantinflas, the movie doesn’t just aim to wring laughs from Moreno’s old material but attempts to reflect Moreno’s talent, revealing just why he was admired by the likes of Charlie Chaplin, Elizabeth Taylor and others. Moreno’s light was bright enough to eclipse Marlon Brando for a Golden Globe in 1956 for Around the World in 80 Days. The film went on to win five Oscars, including best picture.
The movie does spend a good amount of time on Moreno’s activism with Mexico’s actors guild. His activism helped clear corruption out of the actors guild while under the authoritarianism of Mexico’s powerful Institutional Revolutionary Party, PRI.
Cantinflas the movie rescues this fact about Moreno from the dusty pages of history to refreshingly show us a funny man who was serious about organized labor. In his stand against corruption, Moreno defended
Mexican actors’ right to an independent union that abided by democratic principles.
Directed by Sebastian del Amo (Sex, Shame & Tears), Cantinflas, the biopic, centers on the beginning of Moreno’s career as an actor in the early 1930s. Moreno wanted to be a boxer but it turned out that he had a better punch delivering lines on stage. Not that those lines made much sense at times, but thanks to his humor and a voice clearly rooted in barrio talk—like the real, downtrodden Mexican urbanites spoke, Moreno morphed himself into Cantinflas.
Written by del Amo, who only had two other films under his belt as a writer (including a short), and the even less experienced Edui Tijerina, Cantinflas’bilingual script is somewhat uneven and struggles to flow smoothly. It doesn’t help that the story takes place in two different worlds, Hollywood and Mexico, and in two also different times destined to converge when Moreno attempts to succeed in the Mecca of the movies.
The film is saved in great part thanks to Catalán actor Oscar Jaenada, who does a magnificent job as Cantinflas—and who, by the way, strikingly resembles Mario Moreno. Other cast members that stand out are actors Michael Imperioli (The Sopranos) as film director Michael Anderson, Isle Salas as Valentina Ivanova (Cantinflas’ wife), and Barbara Mori as Elizabeth Taylor.
In spite of its weaknesses and challenges, this biographical feature successfully shows the complexities of Moreno the human being—his struggles to find his acting voice and launch his career, marital problems, stardom and union organizing activism. We also see a man determined to maintain artistic integrity and control.
When Hollywood Knocks
When approached by newbie director Anderson to join the cast of Around the World in 80 Days alongside British actor David Niven. Moreno turns down a role playing the stereotypical, seeking instead the role of Passepartout.
Moreno turns the character into the lead of the movie, leading to a Golden Globe for best actor in a comedy or musical—the first Mexican actor to accomplish such a feat.
Cantinflas made just two other American films in the 1960s, including, Pepe, alongside the legendary Bing Crosby. The film flopped but earned the Mexican actor another Golden Globe nomination.
Moreno helped usher in the Golden Era of Mexican Cinema and was determined to keep it shining. By the time he died, in 1993, Mario Moreno had made about 50 films, most of them box office hits, centered around his character Cantinflas, and often doing social commentary through comedy about injustice in Mexico, such as Si Yo Fuera Diputado (If I Were A Congressman), El Ministro Y Yo (The Minister And I), and “Su Excelencia” (Your Excellency).
“I think that Si Yo Fuera Diputadowas one of his best works,” said Axel Caballero, film director and executive director of the National Association of Latino Independent Producers, NALIP. “If you watch it now decades later, it still is very relevant today. He always seemed to infuse a criticism on the system, if veiled at times and at others very straight on…. His characters reflected the social and cultural problems of Mexico at that time and toward the later part of his life he dedicated a lot of his work to charity. His activism seeped through his work.”
Source of Inspiration
Cantinflas work also has inspired other Latinos in film in the United States.
Puerto Rican Bienvenida Matias says she has not missed any of Cantinflas’ films.
“We saw all of them,” she explains. “Cantinflas was about giving us a different way of interpreting a very harsh world, with laughter, hope, and keeping up the good fight. Maybe that’s why today I love working for a nonprofit such as NALIP and engaging with Latino creative media makers. He opened my eyes to class, race and economic inequalities. And we created NALIP to promote Latino/a media makers in front and behind the camera.”
For his contributions to motion pictures, Cantinflas received a spot on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1980. His star is near the intersection of Hollywood Boulevard and Wilcox Avenue, between those of actress Lucille Ball and heartthrob Tony Martin.
The film is playing at Cinemark at the Pike, 99 S. Pine Ave., in Long Beach, and at Edwards Long Beach Stadium 26, 7501 E. Carson Blvd., Long Beach.