The Rumberas film (in Spanish, Cine de rumberas) was a film genre that flourished in Mexico's Golden Age of Mexican cinema in the 1940s and 1950s. Its major stars were the so-called rumberas, dancers of Afro-Caribbean musical rhythms. The genre is a film curiosity, one of the most fascinating hybrids of the international cinema.Final de partida: Ninón Sevilla and the Rumberas film
Today, thanks to their unique characteristics, they are considered cult films. The Rumberas film is one of the contributions of Mexican cinema to international cinema. The Rumberas film represented a social view of the Mexico of the 1940s and 1950s, specifically of those women considered sinners and prostitutes, who confronted the moral and social conventions of their time. The genre was a more realistic approach to the Mexican society of that time. It was melodramas about the lives of these women, who were redeemed through exotic dances.Final de partida: Ninón Sevilla and the Rumberas film
Etymology The rumberas were the dancers and actresses that swayed to Afro-Caribbean rhythms in Mexican cinema's Golden Age of the 1940s and 1950s. The term rumbera comes from the so-called Cuban rumba that was popular in Mexico and Latin America from the late 19th century to the early 1950s. Eventually new tropical rhythms such as the mambo and the cha-cha-chá displaced the Cuban rumba as the most popular Latin music genre; the rumberas adopted these new rhythms and used them in their films.
Origins The rumberas films have their roots in various film genres. The film noir, very popular in Hollywood and other film industries in the 1930s and 1940s, can be considered their cornerstone, given the urban environment of the genre. Film noir was characterized by having among its protagonists the femme fatales, the cabaret women who aroused the passions of men and were often the source of conflict in the plot. Gloria Grahame and Rita Hayworth created film noir images of women who enjoy singing cabaret and simultaneously make men suffer. Their other base was the Hollywood musical of the 1930s, epitomized by Busby Berkeley and his famous colorful and extravagant musical numbers endowed with a deep aesthetic expression. Although not in such stylized form (due to limited budgets), rumberas films tried to imitate in their musical numbers the guidelines of the genre. Finally, the film genre was enriched by the Urban social cinema or melodramatic films, whose principal artisan in Mexico was the filmmaker Alejandro Galindo. All this mix of elements and genres can be considered the basis of rumberas film.
In the Rumberas films the main heroines are women, generally humble and naive, who, because of a bad move of fate, are forced to fall into the underworld of prostitution and get involved with gangsters and pimps. These women suffered through most of the time. The plot allowing them only a few moments of pleasure in the movie. Invariably the "sinner woman" had to find her punishment. The stars of this genre became objects of worship, but also of criticism and contempt of the hypocritical judgment of the hearings.
In general, Mexican cinema was characterized by representing the prostitute as the main figure on numerous occasions, from the good-hearted prostitute represented in Santa (1932), to the tragic prostitute reflected in Woman of the Port (1934). In the Rumberas films, these tragic heroines also danced and radiated sensuality.Noticieros Televisa Final de Partida: Ninón Sevilla & The Rumberas film
Origins in vaudeville The rumberas first came to the theatrical stage in the late 19th century, at the time of vaudeville and burlesque, accompanying the many comedians and buffs of Cuban origin who settled in Mexico City. From the early 20th century until the 1920s, in the age of the great Mexican vedettes of the frivolous theater (as María Conesa or Lupe Vélez), rumba dancers began to emerge. Lolita Téllez Wood is popularly considered the first dancer to popularize West Indian rhythms. During the course of the next decade, many rumberas and vedettes from Cuba came to Mexico.SOMOS (1999), p. 6-8
In the cinema The concept of the "rumbera" has been embodied in Mexican cinema since the first talkies in the early 1930s. The actress Maruja Griffel was the first to dance the rumba, in the film ¡Que viva México! (Sergei Eisenstein, 1931). She was followed by others such as Consuelo Moreno in Mujeres sin alma, ¿Venganza suprema?, Rita Montaner in La noche del pecado (1933), and Margarita Mora in Águila o Sol (1937). In addition, the Puerto Rican actress Mapy Cortés (called "The Rumbera Blanca") was famous for dancing the conga in numerous films. Lolita Téllez Wood participated in three Mexican films: El rosal bendito (Juan Bustillo Oro, 1936), Mujeres de hoy (Ramón Peon, 1936) and Honrarás a tus padres (1936), the latter directed by Juan Orol, considered the "spiritual father" of the rumberas film.
Juan Orol was born in Spain but grew up in Cuba, where he lived in the "solares", as they are known in Cuba to the low-income neighborhoods. There he had much contact with people of African origin, who him taught all their dancing techniques.Muñóz Castillo, Fernando. Las Reinas del Trópico, México, 1993, ed.Grupo Azabache, p.211 After establishing himself as a film director in Mexico, Orol became famous for the importation of numerous Cuban figures to the Mexican cinema. María Antonieta Pons was one of his discoveries. It is common to recognize her as the first cinematographic rumbera, following her debut in Siboney (1938), a film inspired by the music of Ernesto Lecuona and directed by Orol, who quickly realized he had a goldmine after Siboney became a blockbuster. Thus, the rumberas film gradually took shape. The dancer Estela invented the maracas at the waist, to do more flashy musical numbers. Another leading figure was the Cuban dancer Celina, who choreographed numerous films. In Cuba, the Mexican Luz Gil was considered the master of all the rumberas.SOMOS (1999), p. 6-8 Although the Rumba was the initial musical genre that was danced in these productions, soon other tropical rhythms were added to the repertoire, such as mambo, conga, calypso music, samba, cha-cha-chá and bolero. Artists such as Pérez Prado, Benny Moré, Agustín Lara, Kiko Mendive, Toña la Negra, Rita Montaner, Maria Luisa Landín, Olga Guillot, Pedro Vargas, Amparo Montes and others deserve a special mention since their voices accompanied the rumberas in their musical numbers and contributed to their luster. Many popular boleros of the time (mainly the songs of Agustín Lara, dedicated to prostitutes), served as inspiration for arguments or titles of the rumberas films (The well paid, Perverted Woman, Adventurous, Traicionera, etc.)
Rise of the genre
During the administration of the Mexican President Miguel Alemán Valdés (1946–1952), the growth of Mexico City as a great metropolis was reflected in the huge boom in cabarets and nightlife around the town. The Mexican Cinema was influenced by this phenomenon. The rural settings that set the tone in the first half of the 1940s began to lose ground against the new melodramas with urban and suburban settings. The famous film Salon Mexico (Emilio Fernández, 1950), marked the transition of the role of the heroine, from the campirano and naive women to the low class young sinners, "night women" dragged by urban revolution to the suburbs and perdition. In this sense, even with all its fancy and tropical extravagance, the rumberas film was a genre that showed a more authentic form of social life of Mexico at the time, without false stylized images that were shown in films from Emilio Fernández and other directors. However, there is also another type of heroine in the Rumberas films. They can not be called "sinners", since they belong to a primitive and amoral universes that does not know the concept of sin. They are the "jungle rumberas" (Tania, Sandra, Yambaó, Zonga, Tahími), inspired by characters from illustrated novels and taken to the movies mainly by Juan Orol.YouTube: Las Rumberas (Historia de la salsa en el Cine Mexicano
Although it is common to recognize María Antonieta Pons as the first film "rumbera", the film Humo en los ojos (1946), directed by the filmmaker Alberto Gout and starring by Meche Barba, was the film that began the mass production of rumberas films because the big Mexican film studios found large sales from them at the box office. The film Aventurera (1950), also directed by Alberto Gout and starring Ninón Sevilla, is considered the masterpiece of the genre. What is remarkable is that the most obvious characteristics of rumberas film (songs, dances, actors, scenery) are easily identifiable in Aventurera and do not differ much from any other films.
However, there is also another type of heroine in the rumberas film. They can not receive the appellation of "sinners", since they belong to a primitive and amoral universe that does not know the concept of sin. They are the "jungle rumberas" (Tania, Sandra, Zonga, Tahími), inspired in personages of illustrated novels and carried to the cinema mainly by Juan Orol.YouTube: Las Rumberas (History of The Salsa in Mexican Cinema
The rumberas film, unique to Mexico, reached the attention of many specialized critics. François Truffaut, still writing for Cahiers du cinéma, wrote a dossier on this exotic subgenre. The critics of Cahiers du cinéma wrote some of the most ardent pages dedicated to Mexican actresses. It is also important to emphasize that some rumberas (as Rosa Carmina or Ninon Sevilla), managed to combine around them filming teams that gave them success as few actresses attained in Mexican cinema (perhaps a privilege only limited to María Félix and Dolores del Río).
It is also important to note that due to the success of rumberas film, many other films were created, which together, allowed the Mexican film industry to consolidate itself. Today, the industry is struggling, despite very specific successes.
The Queens of the Tropics According to experts and film critics, of all the rumberas who performed in the rumberas film in the Mexican cinema, only five of them have managed to go down in history as the leading exponents of the genre. They were María Antonieta Pons (1922–2000), Meche Barba (1922–2000), Ninón Sevilla (1929–2015), Amalia Aguilar (1924–2021) and Rosa Carmina (1929). In 1993, the journalist Fernando Muñoz Castillo, named them The Queens of the Tropics (, after the film The Queen of the Tropics). None resembles the other. All were different, not only in their styles of dance, but also in their films, which enjoyed a particular and unique style and label.
María Antonieta Pons (1922–2004)
Pons was Mexican cinema's first rumbera, and set the tone that distinguishes the genre. Maritoña (as she was also called) came to Mexico in 1938 with her then-husband, the Spanish filmmaker Juan Orol. Pons worked with varying success in suburban melodramas, kids' movies, and family comedies. Despite her voluptuous dance style, the actress has always maintained in a particular way in her films (especially those she made her second husband, filmmaker Ramón Pereda). Her most important films include Siboney (1938), Red Konga (1943), Caribbean Charm (1945), The Queen of the Tropics (1945), The Caribbean Cyclone (1950), The Queen of the Mambo (1950), and María Cristina (1951). After the decline of the rumberas she tried to enter, with little success, other film genres, such as comedy. After her last film, released in 1965, she remained isolated from public life until her deathCuban rumberas in México: María Antonieta Pons
Meche Barba (1922–2000)