''Sandra, la mujer de fuego'' (''Sandra, The Woman of Fire'') is a Mexican-Cuban

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. Drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular super-g ...

directed by

Juan Orol Juan Rogelio García García, better known as Juan Orol (August 4, 1897 in Lalín, Pontevedra, Spain – May 26, 1988 in Mexico City, Mexico) was a Mexican-Spanish actor, producer, screenwriter and film director. He was known as ''The King of ...

. It was released in 1954 and starring

Rosa Carmina Rosa Carmina Riverón Jiménez (born November 19, 1929) is a Cuban-Mexican actress and dancer. She was discovered in Cuba by the Spanish filmmaker Juan Orol, and made her debut in Mexican cinema in Orol's film ''A Woman from the East'' in 1946. S ...

and Arturo Martínez.

Plot

Haunted by her past, the famous cabaret singer Sandra (

) decides to get away and marries Don Miguel Olazabal (Manuel Arvide), a wealthy landowner. The impossibility of her husband to consummate their marriage causes a burning passion in Sandra, passion aroused in all men around her. Quickly she discovers that can not escape of her past, because wherever she go, life of crime who she lived in the past continue to haunt.

Cast

... ''Sandra'' * Arturo Martínez ... ''Malo'' * César del Campo ... ''Jorge'' * Manuel Arvide ... ''Don Miguel Olazabal''

Reviews

In the delirant Juan Orol's tropical melodrama, the beautiful rumberas are convicted to tragic misfortunes because of men and roam in scenarios populated of wild beaches, untimely storms, swaying palms, and in this case, omnipresent orchids. The woman -here Rosa Carmina, third wife of Juan Orol - wakes burning passions among all the men around her. The Mexican Film historian

Emilio García Riera Emilio García Riera (born 17 November 1931 in Ibiza, Spain – died on 11 October 2002 in Zapopan, Jalisco, Mexico) was a Spanish-born Mexican actor, writer and cinema critic. He has written exhaustively on Mexican cinema of 1929 and 1976, leav ...

said: ''"Orol went to Cuba to make this ineffable melodrama of tropical passions in which a narrator describes the fevers of the heroine and her impotent husband''. The lush Rosa Carmina tirelessly travels between the palms of

Haiti Haiti (; ht, Ayiti ; French: ), officially the Republic of Haiti (); ) and formerly known as Hayti, is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean Sea, east of Cuba and Jamaica, and ...

, hiding her sexual dissatisfaction in solitary beds with the open windows while listening the African drums and arouses uncontrollable passions among the laborers of her impotent husband. A clip to store in the memory: the sequence in which Rosa Carmina dance a sensual rumba to a group of laborers feverish, burly, immobilized by the "baroques" charms of the stunning rumbera.''About Sandra, la mujer de fuego''
/ref> The story of the film seems torn from the novel '' El reino de este mundo'', by

Alejo Carpentier Alejo Carpentier y Valmont (, ; December 26, 1904 – April 24, 1980) was a Cuban novelist, essayist, and musicologist who greatly influenced Latin American literature during its famous "boom" period. Born in Lausanne, Switzerland, of French an ...

. The character of Sandra has certain similarities with the character of Floridor. While Floridor recites

Racine Jean-Baptiste Racine ( , ) (; 22 December 163921 April 1699) was a French dramatist, one of the three great playwrights of 17th-century France, along with Molière and Corneille as well as an important literary figure in the Western traditio ...

parliaments to the black slaves in the plantations, Sandra moves to the beat of the drums. The film is part of the classic film saga starring by the characters created by Juan Orol. The saga began in the film ''El reino de los gángsters'' (1947), and continued until ''México de Noche'' (1974). The film is succeeded by the film ''El Sindicato del Crimen (Antesala de la muerte)'' also filmed in 1954.

References

External links

*
''About Sandra, la mujer de fuego''
1954 films Mexican black-and-white films Gangster films Rumberas films 1950s Spanish-language films Films directed by Juan Orol Cuban black-and-white films Mexican drama films Cuban drama films 1954 drama films 1950s Mexican films {{1950s-Mexico-film-stub