As I was getting up and preparing myself to walk Mira this morning, I noticed that TCM was running a pair of Roy Rogers pictures and I took a quick look at them to see if they were as bad as I remembered. They were indescribably awful.
However, the second of the two, On the Old Spanish Trail piqued my interest. In the picture Roy co-stars with an actor playing a dashing Mexican Robin Hood, a “singing charro”, and, despite the painfully stereotyped character of the movie, I thought the guy had real talent so I looked him up. His name was Tito Guizar.
As it turns out in Mexico there was a whole “singing charro” genre of motion pictures whose development paralleled the “singing cowboy” genre (there’s nothing like watching a Roy Rogers movie to make you appreciate the high production values of a Gene Autry picture), and the founding light of the genre was Tito Guizar, who had an enormous radio, American movie, Mexican movie, and Mexican television career that lasted until his death in the 1990’s.
What a work ethic! The guy was working into his 90’s.
If you go to Mexico City, be sure to visit Plaza Garibaldi, where the mariachi bands hang out waiting for gigs. The golden age of Mexican cinema was in the 40s and 50s, before color became common, though Antonio Aguilar and Flor Silvestre kept the Charro tradition alive until the 60s. I am told that both the Charro and the mariachi bands developed in Jalisco, with the latter springing up in Guadalajara.
I’ve always been a fan of mariachi music. When others were imitating The Kingston Trio, I was listening to, singing, and playing mariachi music.
I know nothing, however, about Mexican cinema.