Product Description

Hailed by critics as one of the best Mexican films ever made, VICTIMAS DEL PECADO explores the mysterious, exotic underworld of postwar Mexico City. Violeta (Ninon Sevilla), a beautiful cabaret dancer, rescues an abandoned baby from a garbage can and decides to raise him. Love blossoms unexpectedly when Santiago (Tito Junco) meets Violeta in the red light district and protects her from the perverse pimp that shadows her life. Powerfully told, the story unfolds in the midst of nocturnal ambiance with musical numbers by mambo king Damaso Perez Prado, and Pedro Vargas, one of Mexico's most popular singers of the era. Featuring the astounding direction of Emilio "Indio" Fernandez and the stunning cinematography of Academy Award nominee Gabriel Figueroa, VICTIMAS DE PECADO is an international classic.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #61133 in DVD
• Released on: 2006-09-05
• Rating: Unrated
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Black & White, Color, Dolby, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
• Original language: Spanish
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 85 minutes

Customer Reviews

Hurray! One of Indio Emilio Fernandez's two Lost Classics now available!
I've been waiting to see this film for a long time, as it was completely available anywhere in any format until this DVD release. It has long been considered one of Emilio Fernandez's two "lost" classics, the other being the rural drama Pueblerina (1949), regarded by some as his best film ever (who knows where they saw it, though!). I'll divide my review into two quick sections.

Regarding the production: Fernandez, along with his core team of cinematographer Gabriel Figueroa, screenwriter Mario Magdaleno, and editor Gloria Shoemann, kicked off the Golden Age of Mexican cinema with a run of some ten great films (and a few lesser ones) in 1943. However their formula, influenced by Eisenstein, French poetic realism, and even John Ford, had by 1948 reached its "maximum delirium" in Rio Escondido. Their other film of that year, Maclovia, looked downright tired. In 1949 they began to mix things up, first with the urban cabaret drama Salon Mexico (a sort of musical film noir) then with the aforementioned Pueblerina. But by late 1949, perhaps due to financial constraints, El Indio started pumping out 3-4 films a year, delving slowly farther away towards different genres. Unfortunately, most of them suffered not only in quality but in their box office takes as well. In 1951 he went on a star run, making films with Jorge Negrete, Pedro Infante, and this one with Ninon Sevilla, which shines above all his other films from that period of his career.

Regarding the film: Victimas del Pecado is a cabaretera drama in the tradition of Salon Mexico and Sevilla's hit Aventurera from the year before, done in a tight 84 minutes. The opening scenes with the pimp in his zoot suite tread right near the edge of over the top, while still managing to be marvelously entertaining. In fact, the first 70+ minutes of this film roll by artfully like a song in a cabaret, with dialogue slowly introduced between musical numbers and gradually lengthening as the story develops. It's all quite incredible really how they manage to tell the story visually during musical bits. It feels like El Indio had a couple of drinks and decided to just let the cameras roll, not unlike the later success of Wong Kar Wai's Chungking Express. And the realism is cutting edge for 1951 (despite a few really corny moments). The images which unfold the story would have set the Hays Code into a tizzy: prostitutes count their money under their skirts, toss a baby in the trash, and are pummeled brutally by a pimp. Not to mention Ninon Sevilla's provocative dance with a black man, who would have been lucky to be playing a piano in an American film of that era. It's not well known North of the border, but a majority of Mexicans have never seen a black person in the flesh. They're also much more conservative on average than Americans. I watched the film here in a rural Mexican village with some locals and they were quite taken aback by the themes and the risqué dancing. And of course Gabriel Figueroa frames some incredible B&W imagery as usual. The whole thing is just great really. The only problem is the last ten minutes of the film, which seemed longer than all that came before it. Rather than letting things roll to conclusion in its smooth artful style, El Indio seems to have suddenly sobered up thinking it was 1945, tacking on an ending somewhere between Las Abandonadas and de Sica's Shoeshine. That's unfortunate but it shouldn't deter you from checking out this otherwise wonderful classic film.

One final thing, an astute observer will note one scene outside the cabaret is entirely in French. That is most certainly a tribute to the enormous success of his earlier cabaret drama, Salon Mexico in France (where it is known as Les Bas-Fonds de Mexico). That film went on to influence Renoir's French Can Can as well as the more recent Moulin Rouge.

Great Mexican Melodrama in Overpriced DVD release
Victims of Sin is a black-and-white Mexican melodrama about motherhood and prostitution in the slums and cabarets of Mexico City built around the talents of Cuban star Ninon Sevilla (Aventurera) and directed by Emilio El Indio Fernandez (Maria Candelaria), one of Mexicos most important filmmakers of the 1940s and early 1950s. Like Aventurera, also on DVD, the film is great and fun in an excessive, apparently campy, sort of way, so if you dont like over-the-top melodramatics you will probably think it is just a bad film, since its greatness lies precisely in the excesses of its plot, acting, and musical numbers. As for the DVD, the only merit is making a classic Mexican film available to US audiences with English subtitles. Other than that, the quality of the DVD is substandard, with no extra features and a hideous menu.

Victims of Sin
"Víctimas del pecado" is one of the most over-the-top melodramas ever made by Emilio (El Indio) Fernández. The reason may be the presence of Cuban star Ninón Sevilla in the leading role, whose screen persona and religious faith permeate the story, the dance numbers, and even the tone of this genre film. It is one of the "películas de cabareteras" (cabaret dancer films) that were so popular in México. In these musical melodramas, brutish men seduced and abandoned young women who would become prostitutes, but for a chance of destiny, they had the opportunity to become singers or dancers. This chance transcended the bleakness in their lives and transformed them into icons of female supremacy, even in the machista frame where the films were conceived. Ninón, a well-known santería practitioner in real life, and daughter of Changó in this Yoruba religion, plays Violeta, a strong-willed dancer-prostitute that works in Cabaret Changó, where she performs sensual African dance numbers, and sings Panamanian songs as "La Cocaleca". Violeta wants to become a star and leave the seedy nightclub, but she gets into trouble with a pimp (Rodolfo Acosta, in outrageous pachuco outfits, swings on the dance floor, turns into violent fits of rage, admonishes a prostitute in French, and shows her how to strut.) He forces another woman to get rid of her newborn, but Violeta rescues the baby literally from the garbage can and decides to keep him to herself. She eventually gets help from Santiago (Víctor Junco), the owner of another nightclub who goes around town followed by a mariachi band that provides him with a soundtrack! Tragedy is a prerequisite in these films, so the story follows the usual pattern of fall and redemption, although tinted with Violeta's (and Ninón's) strong personality and raw sexuality, adding a different angle (also present in Rossana Podestà's character in "La red", an almost forgotten film by Fernández) than the usual suffering of all the tearful female characters in his films, mostly played by Dolores del Río or Columba Domínguez. Violeta dances and sings for survival, she argues and fights in constant revolt against the cabaretera's destiny. "Víctimas del pecado" is a true joy, a real gem, with musical performances by Cuban superstar Rita Montaner, Mexican singer Pedro Vargas, and Dámaso Pérez Prado, the Mambo King. Call it camp if you will, but it is one of the outstanding pieces of the golden era of Mexican cinema and one of the best films by El Indio Fernández.