This one is the third Argentinian old film --1955-- I've decided to watch on "You Tube". There are so many of them that having been lucky with the first two I decided to keep trying.
And this one, "El amor nunca muere" (Love Never Dies) wasn't a deception either. On the contrary! I truly enjoyed them!! (I say "them" because this film was made with three separate segments that at the time was a sort of new format for films. Each segment performed by a totally different cast with a DIVA as the protagonist.
I was surprised seeing the cast and finding that three divas were in the same film, something impossible at the time since which one will have the name at the top?
But then when I saw the end of the first one after 40 minutes and the beginning of a new episode following the destiny of the medallion as the link or excuse to change period and actors, I realized that everything made sense, because the three queens didn't have to work together competing for close ups and the spot light.
The two first episodes are practically fairy tales, since they stretch reality and circumstances to a snapping point. The first segment takes place in the 18th Century, were the medallion belongs to a very famous actress of that time (Zully Moreno), the second episode happens during the 19th Century, when a lady buys it at a pawn shop (Mirtha Legrand as protagonist) and the third one in the fifties, when they made this movie, the recipient (Tita Merello) getting it as a souvenir from her absent husband through a visiting acquaintance in charge of the errand - -a husband gone from her life 18 years ago, never seen again and now dead.
This third episode is a genuine tear-jerker, highly sentimental and only lacking tremulous violin strings in the background.
Outrageous kitsch without complex, I loved them all.
I believe that to enjoy this movie one has to be Argentinian (Latin American?) since the three episodes are totally impregnated with intense, almost asphyxiating tenderness (better call it Gooyness), as much as a Mexican soap-opera couldn't have been produced in any other country in the whole world (well, in Argentina maybe). And better yet, it really helps if those actors are familiar faces to the viewer.
I must be brave and confess that the last one, with Tita Merello as the apparently rough old truck-driver and self-sacrificing mother of a brand new doctor that will marry a society girl... (corny, right?) made me cry, but cry in the Boo-hoo manner (I don't care what you think, I loved it!!!). Tita was an incredible actress and this character, I'm sure, was custom-made to her acting range since it fitted her as a glove fits a hand.
If you don't care for this sort of rosy dreamland fantasies, please, don't even attempt to watch this movie, but if you feel comfortable in fairyland... go ahead, enjoy these excellent samples of escapism... have a handy pack of Kleenex near by (on your lap preferably).
