| Vintage Pulp | Feb 1 2020 |
It happened four nights.
Cuatro noches contigo is not a pulp style movie, so we won't get into detail about it, except to say that it's a Mexican version of the iconic comedy It Happened One Night, with Luis Aguilar, the beautiful Elsa Aguirre, some musical numbers, a lot of cuteness, and one spanking. But we wanted to call attention to the film's art deco influenced poster. It was painted by Leopoldo Mendoza Andrade, who signed his work as Mendoza and was one of the artists who popularized this style in Mexican promo art during the 1950s. We haven't yet seen one of these art deco creations that isn't stunning. See what we mean here, here, here, and here. Cuatro noches contigo premiered in Mexico today in 1952, and if you understand Spanish and want to check it out, for now it's on YouTube at this link.
MexicoCuatro noches contigoIt Happened One NightElsa AguirreLuis AguilarLeopoldo Mendoza Andradeposter artcinema
| Vintage Pulp | Jul 12 2018 |
Never cross a woman who's spent her life on the wrong side of the tracks.
This beautiful poster was made to promote the film Vagabunda, aka Tramp, a made-in-Mexico melodrama that premiered there today in 1950. It stars Leticia Palma, who befriends and falls in loves with a priest played by Luis Beristáin who's lost his memory as a result of an assault and robbery. Palma, who works as a fichera in a place called El Tropical, takes in the priest and dubs him Carlos. A fichera, by the way, is a term to describe a female nightclub employee who does things ranging from dancing with clients to having sex with them. Palma is already in a precarious situation working a dead-end job while sheltering the priest, but things get worse when she ends up being coerced into street prostitution by a gangster named Gato. Shortly afterward, a series of events lead to the killing of Palma's pregnant sister, and she vows vengeance upon those responsible.
The poster, which is one of the better ones we've seen of late, was signed by someone named Mendoza. So off to the intertubes we went to try and ferret out his or her identity and we found that this was the work of Leopoldo Mendoza Andrade, an acclaimed illustrator who worked throughout the ’40s, ’50s and ’60s. His striking promo art uses tracks as a motif because those and trains figure prominently in the movie. For example, the priest is assaulted while riding in a boxcar, and a climactic scene takes place on a railway bridge. Mendoza may have painted more than 300 hundred posters, but this surely must be one of his best. His work can be difficult to find because attributions are scanty, but his signature is easily identifiable and his Art Deco-influenced style is unique, so we'll keep an eye out for more of his creations.
MexicoVagabundaLeticia PalmaAntonio BaduLuis BeristáinLeopoldo MendozaLeopoldo Mendoza Andradeposter artcinema
