"Frances Christeson, experienced cinematographer and artist of cine devices, gives us in Log of the Timber Rush the movie diary of a holiday voyage. That the freighter, in which she had booked passage, stripped its gears and was stalled somewhere in the Pacific Ocean, well off the coast of Mexico, upset her film plan but did not stop her. It became part of an amazing personal and movie making experience. But before the misfortune at sea and the long delay of weeks, waiting for help and repairs. Miss Christeson had filmed the loading of the Timber Rush with affectionate attention to detail and the use of fascinating cine symbols. She also had captured sequences of gorgeous quality, framed through ship's gear and depicting the beautiful, lazy clouds of the tropics and the life aboard the vessel. When the gears were stripped and the long period of inaction came, the camerawoman had, as she puts it, "the job of filming nothing happening." She does that as well as possible, and the result is a delightful sea picture marred only by the doldrums of fate." Movie Makers, Dec. 1938, 619.
"Luz externa fue una de las producciones más ambiciosas del súper 8 mexicano. El guión se basaba en el monólogo de Ernesto, un machín jipiteca, que relata a un amigo las peripecias con su novia Raquel. Posteriormente el guión sirvió como la base del cuento con el mismo título que apareció como parte del libro El rey se acerca a su templo. Tanto la película como el cuento se abocaban a describir el abanico amplio de la juventud clasemediera urbana contracultural que había aparecido a fines de los años sesenta y principios de los setenta: los macizos que acceden al consumo de drogas, las muchachas de buena familia que se acercan a ese mundo, los nuevos conversos a la revolución social o los intelectuales que participan del ambiente con simpatía" (Vázquez Mantecón, 2012).
"Luz externa [External light] was one of the most ambitious productions of the Mexican super 8. The script was based in the monologue of Ernesto, a 'machin' hippie, that tells a friend about his adventures with his girlfriend Raquel. The script served later as the base for a short story with the same title that appeared as part of the book El rey se acerca a su templo [The king approaches his temple]. Both the movie and the short story described the wide range of the middle class urban countercultural youth that emerged at the end of the sixties and the beginning of the seventies: the strong men that had access to drugs, the girls from good families that entered that world, the new converts to social revolution or the intellectuals that sympathize with that ambiance" (Vázquez Mantecón, 2012).
"Quizá para dejar claro que abordaba el tema desde un punto de vista artístico, la película comienza con imágenes de erotismo en las artes plásticas (Picasso y Fiona Alexander, principalmente) para relatar la historia de un hombre (Salvador Garcini) que se acerca sensualmente a su amada (Tina Romero) y descubre que tiene una vagina dentada, cosa que lo desorienta y conflictúa. Es curioso que a diferencia del poema de Neruda en el que se había inspirado, la película no mostraba el ejercicio de una sexualidad plena y consumada, sino precisamente de los miedos a ella.
El joven vaga atormentado por las calles de la ciudad. Acude con una especie de gurú (Juan José Gurrola), que interpreta música neuroatonal en un teclado eléctrico, mientras resuena el poema de Neruda. A partir de esto el joven recupera sus fuerzas y recibe una suerte de inciación sexual con una mujer de vestido blanco en la pirámide de Cuicuilco para finalmente volver, todo complejo superado, a la mujer del principio" (Vázquez Mantecón, 2012)
"Maybe to make it clear that the topic was addressed from an artistic perspective, the film begins with erotic images from plastic arts (mainly Picasso and Fiona Alexander) to tell the story of a man (Salvador Garcini) that approaches sensually his loved one (Tina Romero) and discovers that she has a Vagina Dentata, which disorients and conflicts him. It is curious that unlike the Neruda poem it is inspired by, the film doesn't show a free and consummated sexuality, but the fears associated with it.
The tormented man wanders the streets of the city. He goes to a sort of spiritual guru (Juan José Gurrola), that interprets neuro-atonal music in an electric keyboard, while Neruda's poem sounds in the background. From this point the young man regains his strength and receives a sort of sexual initiation with a woman dressed in white in the pyramid of Cuicuilco to finally come back, all complexes aside, to the woman of the beginning" (Vázquez Mantecón, 2012)
"In producing Mexican Fiestas, the Hiram Percy Maxim Award winner of 1938, Ralph E. Gray has written a triumphant climax to his sympathetic and beautiful studies of Mexican life. Last year, in the Ten Best winner, Primitive Patzcuaro, he trained his camera quietly but observingly on the small scope of a single village. This year, in the dynamic sweep and action of Mexican Fiestas, Mr. Gray has ranged the length and breadth of Mexico to record with amazing vitality the thrilling ceremonies of a people at play. Here is an authentic documentation of religious and quasi religious holiday customs, both pagan and Christian. Here the simple mind of the Indian peasant interprets history and theology in his own colorful and often childlike idiom. Here, in the words of the film's own preface, "brave fireworks still exorcise the Devil; bright costumes do honor to the Diety, and exciting dances revive in antic splendor the ancient folklore of Aztec, Moor and Spanish Christian. To this striking and turbulent subject matter, Mr. Gray has brought a photographic skill which but rarely returned him anything less than perfection. The film's episodes, well edited and shrewdly titled, march smoothly onward to an amazing climax of pageantry and beauty. Important as a document of ethnologic value, entertaining as a drama of people at play, Mexican Fiestas is a worthy winner of the Maxim Award for 1938." Movie Makers, Dec. 1938, 596-597.
"It takes Cal Duncan 1300 feet of 16mm. color film to tell a pair of politely uninterested guests how he caught a sailfish off Acapulco — but the effort, as exemplified in Mexican Malarkey, is decidedly worth it. Mr. Duncan's running gag, climaxed by a truly comic finish right out of the funny papers, is the flashback technique developed to a high and satisfying order. His Mexican footage itself is no less effective. The robust and hearty producer has an artist's eye for fresh viewpoints, a dramatist's instinct for revealing action. His sequence on Mexico's traditional Sunday bullfight, always a difficult assignment, is outstanding. Mexican Malarkey is a refreshing variation on an increasing wellworn theme." Movie Makers, Dec. 1949, 454.
"Mexican Silhouette, conceived as a gamble, has grown up to glory. After but a few years of average movie making experience, Clement K. Chase — as with so many — felt an irresistible urge to attempt, in one film, a concentration of all his accumulated skill and experience. He turned to a subject he knew with intimacy and affection, and Mexican Silhouette was the result. It is a splendid educational and general interest study, divided flexibly into three main sections — Mexico, D. F., Mexican Agriculture and Mexican Cities. To these subjects, Mr. Chase has brought a mature photographic skill, marked by tripod steadiness, stimulating compositions and a dramatic feeling for the use of filters. Well titled in the original silent version, the film is now being distributed commercially in both sound and silent editions." Movie Makers, Dec. 1939, 633.
"Having forsaken the good land of tequila for the gypsy life of a trailerite, Ralph E. Gray presents what may be the last in a long line of distinguished human record films on America's southern neighbor. Mexico At Work And At Play displays recurrently in its many and varied sequences the opulent camera work and warm eye for color which have marked all of Mr. Gray's award winners. Mirrored in the present movie are such native occupations as sugar cane farming and mescal distilling, such handicrafts as glass blowing and opal polishing, such diversions as cock fighting and an Easter Passion Play. Mr. Gray's treatment of these and other colorful subjects is leisurely, loving and methodical." Movie Makers, Dec. 1948, 494.
"General scenes around Acapulco; Bay, ships, beach, poolside, city scenes, landscape, cliff diving, traditional dance and crafts." UC San Diego Library.
"Two Visual Arts students of the San Carlos Academy find themselves embroiled in contradictions, spiritual inclinations and concerns about the political and social conditions of Mexico, which puts them in a quandary about what stance to take in the Student Movement of 1968." Ambulante.
Total Pages: 5
Amateur Cinema