''The Kneeling Goddess'' (Spanish: ''La diosa arrodillada'') is a 1947 Mexican

Melodrama film A modern melodrama is a dramatic work in which the plot, typically sensationalized and for a strong emotional appeal, takes precedence over detailed characterization. Melodramas typically concentrate on dialogue that is often bombastic or exces ...

directed by

Roberto Gavaldón Roberto Gavaldón (June 7, 1909 in Jiménez, Chihuahua – September 4, 1986 in Mexico City) was a Mexican film director. Eight of Gavaldón's films were featured on the list 100 Best Movies of the Cinema of Mexico. His 1958 film ''Ash Wed ...

and starring

María Félix María de los Ángeles Félix Güereña (; 8 April 1914 – 8 April 2002) was a Mexican actress and singer. Along with Pedro Armendáriz and Dolores del Río, she was one of the most successful figures of Latin American cinema in the 1940s an ...

Arturo de Córdova Arturo García Rodríguez (8 May 1908 – 3 November 1973), known professionally as Arturo de Córdova, was a Mexican actor who appeared in over a hundred films. Biography Career Arturo García Rodríguez was born in Mérida, Yucatán on 8 May 1 ...

and

Rosario Granados Rosario Granados (March 12, 1925 – March 25, 1997) was an Argentine-born Mexican film actress known for her roles in Mexican cinema. Granados starred in the 1949 comedy ''The Great Madcap'' (1949).Acevedo-Muñoz p.ix Selected filmography * ''Th ...

. It was shot at the Estudios Churubusco in

Mexico City Mexico City ( es, link=no, Ciudad de México, ; abbr.: CDMX; Nahuatl: ''Altepetl Mexico'') is the capital and largest city of Mexico, and the most populous city in North America. One of the world's alpha cities, it is located in the Valley o ...

, with sets designed by the

art director Art director is the title for a variety of similar job functions in theater, advertising, marketing, publishing, fashion, film industry, film and television, the Internet, and video games. It is the charge of a sole art director to supervise and ...

Manuel Fontanals Manuel Fontanals (1893–1972) was a Catalonian Spanish-born art director who settled and worked in Mexico during the Golden Age of Mexican cinema. Early years The son of the cabinetmaker Tomàs Fontanals i Sivilla and his mother Rosa Mateu, Man ...

Plot

Married businessman Antonio (

) is carrying on an affair with Raquel (

), who wants him to divorce his wife Elena (

). Instead of breaking off his affair with Raquel, he purchases for Elena as an anniversary gift a statue – the titular Kneeling Goddess – which, unbeknownst to him, features Raquel as the model. Obsessed with Raquel, Antonio reinitiates the affair and appears to agree with Raquel to divorce Elena. When Elena dies in mysterious circumstances and Antonio marries Raquel, not everything is as it appears.

Cast

as Raquel Serrano *

as Antonio Ituarte *

as Elena * Fortunio Bonanova as Nacho Gutiérrez *

Carlos Martínez Baena Carlos Martínez Baena (7 May 1889 – 29 May 1971) was a Spanish-Mexican actor. At a young age he moved to Mexico with his family where he became a journalist. He appeared in more than seventy films from 1931 to 1970. Selected filmography Re ...

as Esteban *

Rafael Alcayde Rafael Alcayde (19 October 1906 – 27 August 1993) was a Mexican film actor.Ruétalo & Tierney p.306 Selected filmography * ''Kiss and Make-Up'' (1934) * ''I Am a Fugitive'' (1946) * ''Cantaclaro'' (1946) * '' The Associate'' (1946) * ''The ...

as Demetrio * Eduardo Casado as Licenciado Jiménez *

Luis Mussot Luis is a given name. It is the Spanish form of the originally Germanic name or . Other Iberian Romance languages have comparable forms: (with an accent mark on the i) in Portuguese and Galician, in Aragonese and Catalan, while is archaic ...

as Dr. Vidaurri *

Carlos Villarías Carlos Villarías (7 July 1892 – 27 April 1976) was a Spanish actor who was born in Córdoba, Spain, and died in California, United States. His most famous role is in the title role of the Spanish-language version of ''Dracula'' (1931), wi ...

as Juez *

Natalia Gentil Arcos Natalia may refer to: People * Natalia (given name), list of people with this name * Natalia (Belgian singer) (born 1980) * Natalia (Greek singer) (born 1983) * Natalia (Spanish singer) (born 1982) Music and film * ''Natalia'' (film), a 198 ...

as María *

Paco Martínez Paco is a Spanish nickname for Francisco. According to folk etymology, the nickname has its origins in Saint Francis of Assisi, who was the father of the Franciscan order; his name was written in Latin by the order as ''Pater Communitatis'' (fath ...

as Villarreal *

Rogelio Fernández Rogelio () is a masculine Spanish given name and a variant of the first name Roger. Notable people with the name include: * Rogelio Antonio, Jr. (born 1962), Filipino chess player *Rogelio Armenteros (born 1994), Cuban pitcher in Major League Bas ...

as Marinero * Alfredo Varela padre as Juez registro civil *

José Arratia José is a predominantly Spanish and Portuguese form of the given name Joseph. While spelled alike, this name is pronounced differently in each language: Spanish ; Portuguese (or ). In French, the name ''José'', pronounced , is an old vernacul ...

* Adolfo Ballano Bueno * Fernando Casanova as Empleado juzgado * Ana María Hernández as Invitada a fiesta * Miguel Ángel López as Joven mensajero * José Muñoz as Detective policía *

Juan Orraca ''Juan'' is a given name, the Spanish and Manx versions of ''John''. It is very common in Spain and in other Spanish-speaking communities around the world and in the Philippines, and also (pronounced differently) in the Isle of Man. In Spanish, t ...

as Detective *

Manuel Pozos Manuel may refer to: People * Manuel (name) * Manuel (Fawlty Towers), a fictional character from the sitcom ''Fawlty Towers'' * Charlie Manuel, manager of the Philadelphia Phillies * Manuel I Komnenos, emperor of the Byzantine Empire * Manu ...

as José *

Félix Samper Felix may refer to: * Felix (name), people and fictional characters with the name Places * Arabia Felix is the ancient Latin name of Yemen * Felix, Spain, a municipality of the province Almería, in the autonomous community of Andalusia, S ...

as Asociado en mesa redonda *

Juan Villegas Juan Villegas is an Argentine film actor and director. He won praise for his acting performance in the film ''El Perro'' (2004), and was nominated for an Argentine Film Critics Association Awards in 2004. Villegas works in the cinema of Argent ...

as Empleado de Antonio

Production

Filming began on 10 February 1947 at the Estudios Churubusco in

. There were reports that one of the film's screenwriters,

José Revueltas José Revueltas Sánchez (November 20, 1914 in Santiago Papasquiaro, Durango – April 14, 1976 in Mexico City) was a Mexican writer, essayist, and political activist. He was part of an important artistic family that included his siblings Silves ...

, had been ordered, supposedly by director

, to enlarge the role of

to make it as important as that of

. Revueltas vehemently denied this in a letter addressed to the editor of one of the magazines that had published said allegation, and according to

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 ...

, "Revueltas defended his integrity in the letter with good reason, but the film is by itself evidence in his favor: osarioGranados has a role that is in effect secondary, that allows to show off much less than that of María Félix." However, what Revueltas said in his letter, regarding the fact that he and other filmmakers had received "the trust" of the film's producers to fulfill their vision, was contested by Revueltas himself in an interview 30 years later with

Paco Ignacio Taibo I Paco Ignacio Taibo I (19 July 1924 in Gijón, Asturias – 13 November 2008 in Mexico City), was a prolific Spanish- Mexican writer and journalist. Life His birth name Francisco Ignacio Taibo Lavilla González Nava Suárez Vich Manjón. He w ...

, where he affirmed that the plot, the adaptation and the script were beyond his control and that of all those involved. Revueltas affirmed: " ��there were many of us collaborators and we all put a little here and a little there. ��After we had finished the script, Tito Davison put his hand on it again and things changed again. These kinds of disasters happen in cinema; some correct others and in the end no one remembers what they wrote. On the other hand, directors have their own ideas and ask that these appear in the script. Edmundo Báez said that some scriptwriters were like tailors, that we made the suit tailored to this star or the other. I thought we were not so much tailors as cobblers ��. The explicit nature (for the time) of certain love scenes generated controversy. Revueltas said that apart from the problems with the script, " esides thatthere was the censorship: it was the stupidest thing in the world. A censorship of idiots, with which it could not be argued." Several civil organizations criticized the film, claiming that it violated morality. In response to the scandal, the film's producers placed the statue used in the film in the lobby of the Chapultepec cinema, as an attraction factor for spectators. This caused one of the organizations protesting the film, the ''Comité Pro Dignificación del Vestuario Femenino'' (CPDVF, "Committee for the Dignification of Women's Clothing"), to steal the statue. The explicit nature of the film's romantic scenes also affected Félix's relationship with his then-husband, composer Agustín Lara, to the point that '' calaveras literarias'' ("skull literature", mocking short poems made in Day of the Dead) and cartoons mocked Felix and Lara's crumbling relationship referring to the film.

Reception

''Cinémas d'Amérique Latine'' called it a "masterpiece of melodrama in which the heroine displays an eroticism out of the ordinary." However, in his book ''María Félix: 47 pasos por el cine'', Paco Ignacio Taibo I, while referring to the film as a "very curious screwball", claimed that it "got lost in a convoluted plot", highlighting the fact that De Córdova's and Félix's character are lovers, only for his character to try to kill her at a certain point. In ''Mujeres de luz y sombra en el cine mexicano: la construcción de una imagen (1939–1952)'', Julia Tuñon wrote: "It is a consistent proposal that contributes with a corpus that is inscribed within a social system of ideas and mentalities that follow a rhythm within the story with its characters."

References

External links

* 1947 films 1947 drama films Mexican drama films 1940s Spanish-language films Films directed by Roberto Gavaldón Films set in Mexico City Films set in Guadalajara Films set in Panama Mexican black-and-white films 1940s Mexican films Spanish-language drama films {{1940s-Mexico-film-stub