Vintage Pulp

May 20 2019

RED HOT ROSSANA

I didn't know that a girl like you could make me feel so sad...

A couple of weeks ago we shared a Mexican movie poster we weren’t 100% sure was actually from Mexico. This time we’re sure—this beautiful promo Antonio Caballero painted for the melodrama La red says right in the lower left corner “impreso en México.” In that previous write-up we also talked about how popular locally produced films were in Mexico before the industry was suffocated by U.S. business and political interests, and this effort is an example. It was made by Reforma Films S.A., based in Mexico City, and starred Libyan born Italian actress Rossana Podesta, Costa Rican actor Crox Alvarado, and U.S. born actor Armando Silvestre. Enticing a burgeoning international star like Podesta over from Europe indicates how established the Mexican film industry was in 1953, when La red was made.

Interestingly, when the movie played in the U.S. it was titled simply Rosanna, which makes sense, because it would be nothing without Podesta. It struck us that even though Toto didn’t write their song of obsession “Rosanna” about Podesta, they might as well have. The film begins when a group of men botch a robbery, a shootout commences, and one of the bandits, Antonio, played by Alvarado, tries to help his wounded comrade. But the dying man gasps to Antonio, “Save yourself—for Rossana.” So we know she’s a special woman even before seeing her. Antonio does save himself and goes to live on the seaside with Podesta, where the two harvest sea sponges. It’s idyllic, but as a wanted thief he has to lay low, which means sending her alone to town to sell their catch. And the men in the town are… well… see below:

I am intrigued by this spicy redhead.

I too find myself somewhat taken with this mysterious chile pepper of a woman.

Perhaps I’ll invite her to coffee and a cronut. That’s a cross between a croissant and a donut, my friend, and living out there on the idyllic seashore as she does, I bet she’s never had one.

I wonder if she’s a fan of our great romantic poet Salvador Díaz Mirón?

I’m certain she has no idea how quickly European skin can burn in this tropical climate.

I’m admittedly less high minded than other men, and mainly wonder what she looks like naked, and whether the carpet is red too.

What the hell are all these guys staring— Oh. I think it’s me.

Clearly, these trips into town are menacing affairs for Podesta. If you were to screen the sequences at an anti-sexual harassment seminar, every guy in the joint would bow his head in shame. Important to note, though, that within the narrative these aggressively pervy guys are depicted in a negative light, with even the soundtrack music growing ominous. When one of Antonio’s robbery compatriots shows up in town, he gets into a shootout that leaves two men dead, and therein are sown the seeds of future troubles. We won’t say more, save that the film is stagy, stylized, operatic, almost devoid of dialogue, and largely remembered because of Podesta’s role. It all worked well enough to earn the Prix International du film le mieux raconté par l’image, aka the Award for Visual Narration, at the Cannes Film Festival.

Moving on to the poster, have a look at a previous Mexican promo we shared last year. It’s here. We’ll wait. Back? You’d think it was the same person who painted both, but the reason we wanted you to glance at the other one is because it exemplifies the strange phenomenon of artists within the same film industry biting each other’s styles. It happened in Italy and Sweden too. Either through direct influence from the studios, or through osmosis due to mutual association, several Mexican artists delved into this art deco tinged style. Check out Leopoldo Mendoza Andrade here. Interesting, right? You’ll see what we mean even more clearly when we share posters from other Mexican artists, for example Juan Antonio Vargas. That’ll be soon. La Red premiered in Mexico today in 1953.

Mexico, Italy, Costa Rica, Libya, France, Cannes Film Festival, Reforma Films S.A., La red, Rossana, Rossana Podesta, Crox Alvarado, Armando Silvestre, Antonio Caballero, poster art, cinema, movie review

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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

September 6

1901—McKinley Fatally Shot

Polish-born anarchist Leon Czolgosz shoots and fatally wounds U.S. President William McKinley at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York. McKinley dies September 12, and Czolgosz is later executed.

September 5

1939—U.S. Declares Neutrality in WW II

The Neutrality Acts, which had been passed in the 1930s when the United States considered foreign conflicts undesirable, prompts the nation to declare neutrality in World War II. The policy ended with the Lend-Lease Act of March 1941, which allowed the U.S. to sell, lend or give war materials to allied nations.

September 5

1972—Munich Massacre

During the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, West Germany, a paramilitary group calling itself Black September takes members of the Israeli olympic team hostage. Eventually the group, which represents the first glimpse of terrorists for most people in the Western world, kill eleven of the hostages along with one West German police officer during a rescue attempt by West German police that devolves into a firefight. Five of the eight members of Black September are also killed.

September 4

1957—U.S. National Guard Used Against Students

The governor of Arkansas, Orval Faubus, mobilizes the National Guard to prevent nine African-American students known as the Little Rock Nine from enrolling in high school in Little Rock, Arkansas.

September 3

1941—Auschwitz Begins Gassing Prisoners

Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest of Nazi Germany’s concentration camps, becomes an extermination camp when it begins using poison gas to kill prisoners en masse. The camp commandant, Rudolf HÃ¶ss, later testifies at the Nuremberg Trials that he believes perhaps 3 million people died at Auschwitz, but the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum revises the figure to about 1 million.