Alton's Paradox: Foreign Film Workers and the Emergence of Industrial Cinema in Latin America

Description

Uses extensive archival research to explore the manifold contributions of foreign film workers to emerging film industries in Latin America from the 1930s to early 1940s. Contents List of Illustrations Acknowledgments 1 Alton’s Paradox 2 Hollywood, City of Dreams: The First Spanish-Language Film Industry 3 “The Biggest Revelation of Hispanic Cinema”: José Mojica’s Transnational Stardom From San Gabriel to Santa Monica El rey de los gitanos: Mojica and Fox Give it Good La cruz y la espada, A (False) New Dawn of Hispanic Cinema Steps toward a New Habit 4 Mexico City Dreams: The Emergence of Latin America’s Most Important Film Industry 5 “The Best We Have in This Forsaken Place”: Cinematography and Collaboration in Alex Phillips’s Films with Arcady Boytler and Fernando de Fuentes Fairy Tales and Realities of a Life in the Movies More than La mujer del puerto: Phillips’s Collaborations with Arcady Boytler A Forgotten Collaborator: Phillips and Fernando de Fuentes Two Collaborations among Many 6 “But only one, Juan Orol, is fundamentally different from the rest”: Orolian Melodrama and cursilería in the 1930s Realities (and Fictions) of a Life Eventually Told in the Movies Of (Neither) Mothers and Wives: Madre querida and El calvario de una esposa Daughters Verging on the Limit: Honrarás a tus padres Without Fault in an Unjust World: El derecho y el deber and Eterna mártir Bad Movies and New Beginnings 7 In the Studios of Buenos Aires: The Rise and Fall of Argentina’s Film Industry 8 “The Primary Champion of National Film”: Ángel Mentasti and the Invention of Argentina Sono Film From the Fields of Lombardy to the Cinemas of Buenos Aires Toward a New Mode of Production: Argentina Sono Film’s First Steps, 1933–1934 1935, A Pivotal Year Becoming Latin America’s First Industrial Studio: Argentina Sono Film in the 1936–37 Seasons He Took the Matter into His Own Hands: Mentasti and Argentine Cinema 9 “A Man Expert in the Needs of the Set”: Tito Davison, an Éminence grise in the Argentine Film Industry of the Late 1930s and Early 1940s Before and Beyond Hollywood An Éminence grise: Davison’s film work in Argentina in the Late 1930s and Early 1940s A Director on the Margins A Dream Finally Realized 10 Foreign Film Workers and the Emergence of Industrial Sound Film in Latin America Notes Bibliography Index