It's voodoo love on an 1850 Cuban slave plantation once a native girl puts a spell on its white master...
Very reminiscent of WHITE CARGO (with a little BIRD OF PARADISE thrown in) only this "Tondelayo" isn't really a bad sort since she's obliged to avenge an ancestor put to death (maybe) for witchcraft but falls for her intended victim instead. The striking color cinematography (which won a Silver Ariel, Mexico's Oscar) vividly captures the sprawling hacienda and its sugar cane fields along with the slaves' endless ululating and uninhibited undulating led by perky Ninón Sevilla as the titular temptress who, at one point, steals the master's clothes and rubs them all over herself until he comes to her in a trance. Yambaó never changes her outfit (a one-piece loincloth and sabertooth necklace right out of ONE MILLION BC) and never gets dirty from all that rolling around on the ground with and without her hypnotized lover (Ramón Gay, billed as Raymond Guy for U.S. consumption). One of the silliest things I've seen in quite some time and I loved every foolish minute of it. A 10/10 in demented entertainment.
Very reminiscent of WHITE CARGO (with a little BIRD OF PARADISE thrown in) only this "Tondelayo" isn't really a bad sort since she's obliged to avenge an ancestor put to death (maybe) for witchcraft but falls for her intended victim instead. The striking color cinematography (which won a Silver Ariel, Mexico's Oscar) vividly captures the sprawling hacienda and its sugar cane fields along with the slaves' endless ululating and uninhibited undulating led by perky Ninón Sevilla as the titular temptress who, at one point, steals the master's clothes and rubs them all over herself until he comes to her in a trance. Yambaó never changes her outfit (a one-piece loincloth and sabertooth necklace right out of ONE MILLION BC) and never gets dirty from all that rolling around on the ground with and without her hypnotized lover (Ramón Gay, billed as Raymond Guy for U.S. consumption). One of the silliest things I've seen in quite some time and I loved every foolish minute of it. A 10/10 in demented entertainment.