Ensayo de un crimen (1955)

Director:

Luis Buñuel

Writers:

Luis Buñuel (writer)
Eduardo Ugarte (writer)

Release Date:

19 May 1955 (Mexico)

Genre:

Comedy | Crime | Drama

Plot:

The delirious journey of a mental disordered man, who is obsessed in making the perfect crime.

Plot Keywords:

Black Comedy | Dark Comedy | Dead Woman On Floor | Mannequin | Stockings

Awards:

1 win & 7 nominations

Cast

Miroslava	...	Lavinia
Ernesto Alonso	...	Archibaldo de la Cruz
Rita Macedo	...	Patricia Terrazas
Ariadna Welter	...	Carlota Cervantes
Eva Calvo	...	Señora de la Cruz, Archibaldo's mother
Enrique Díaz 'Indiano'	...	Señor de la Cruz, Archibaldo's father
Carlos Riquelme	...	The commissioner
Chabela Durán	...	Sister Trinidad
Carlos Martínez Baena	...	Priest
Manuel Dondé	...	Colonel at wedding
Armando Velasco	...	Judge
Rodolfo Landa	...	Alejandro Rivas
Andrea Palma	...	Mrs. Cervantes
Leonor Llausás	...	The governess
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Armando Acosta	...	Man at Gordo's
Eduardo Alcaraz	...	Gordo Azuara
Janet Alcoriza	...	American tourist
Rafael Banquells hijo	...	Archibaldo as a boy
Antonio Bravo	...	Antiques dealer
Emilio Brillas	...	mannequin maker
Lupe Carriles	...	Maid at Carlota's home
Jorge Casanova	...	draftsman
Ángel Di Stefani	...	police agent
Enrique García Álvarez	...	Chucho
Jesús Gómez	...	Lopez, policeman
Elodia Hernández	...	dress shop owner
Francisco Ledesma	...	Antique shop asst.
José María Linares-Rivas	...	Willy Corduran
Salvador Lozano	...	Gambler
Ángel Merino	...	handwriting expert
Roberto Meyer	...	Doctor
José Peña	...	Esteban
Ignacio Peón	...	wedding guest

Also Known As:

La vida criminal de Archibaldo de la Cruz
Rehearsal for a Crime
The Criminal Life of Archibaldo de la Cruz (USA)

Runtime:

89 min

Country:

Mexico

Language:

Spanish

Color:

Black and White

Sound Mix:

Mono

Filming Locations:

Mexico City, Distrito Federal, Mexico

Company:

Alianza Cinematográfica Española

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Buñuel y la mesa del rey Salomón (2001)

EL (1952)/THE CRIMINAL LIFE OF ARCHIBALDO DE LA CRUZ (1955) - Films Sans Frontieres DVD Review

Following your advice, I recently `relented' to buying from Alapage the two Luis Bunuel Double-Feature discs released in France by Film Sans Frontieres. After watching them in their entirety, I cannot believe that I, who consider Bunuel my all-time favorite director and one of the true masters of the medium, have waited this long to acquire these DVDs. Actually while Alapage listed these DVDs at EUR25.73 on their site, they only cost me EUR21.51 each (excluding EUR12 shipping charges). So, if there is still anybody who has not purchased them yet, now may be the time to do so!

Since I had never watched EL (1952) before, it was the first one to go through my DVD player. It was a chilling parable of an insanely jealous middle-aged man played with acute intensity by Arturo De Cordova. It afforded Bunuel ample opportunity to make practical use of overt Freudian symbolism without lending the film a heavy-handed air of pretentiousness. While there are some critics who consider it as merely `an engaging, minor work', I regard it as being among Bunuel's finest; arguably, with this film, Bunuel reached the culmination of his work in Mexico, but it also looks forward to similar sequences and themes he would tackle later on in his career, especially TRISTANA (1970) and, his last film, THAT OBSCURE OBJECT OF DESIRE (1977).

EL was beautifully abetted by another of his low-budget Mexican films, the great black comedy THE CRIMINAL LIFE OF ARCHIBALDO DE LA CRUZ (1955). Again, critical reception was a bit muted in some circles, dismissing it as `just a throwaway oddity' typical of Bunuel's films of the period. However, it is much more than that: it is certainly very funny if you can accept its macabre sense of humor. It allowed Bunuel to create some of the most memorable images in all of his films, especially the celebrated dummy incineration scene, which could have been "inspired" by a similar scene in Michael Curtiz's marvelous MYSTERY OF THE WAX MUSEUM (1933) which Bunuel must have seen while working at Warner Bros. in the Thirties. A similar instance of this eclectic approach on Bunuel's part can be found in the "walking hand" sequence in his THE EXTERMINATING ANGEL (1962) - one of my favorite Bunuels - which harks back to an identical premise in Robert Florey's THE BEAST WITH FIVE FINGERS (1946), another Warner Bros. horror melodrama. For me, one of the enduring assets of THE CRIMINAL LIFE OF ARCHIBALDO DE LA CRUZ is the charm and great beauty that was Miroslava Stern (who played the part of Lavinia and was the model for the ill-fated dummy). Tragically, she would take her own life a mere two weeks after the film's release with her body, ironically enough, ending up cremated!

Both the print utilized and the transfer for both films were adequate enough, and perfectly acceptable under the circumstances. However, EL's overall visual and aural qualities where distinctly superior to those of ARCHIBALDO which suffered from excessive specks and slight audio dropouts at times, but were never so alarming as to dispel from one's viewing pleasure of the film.