(Radeant Films, 1968) Exec Prod: Alvaro C. Ortiz; Dir/Scr: Carlos
Enrique Taboada; Photo: Raúl Domínguez; Music: Enrico C.
Cabiati; Prod Mgr: Héctor Baltierra C.; Co-Dir: Angel
Rodríguez; Film Ed: Sergio Soto; Art Dir: José
Méndez; Camera Op: Antonio Ruiz J.; Makeup: Graciela Muñoz;
Dialog Rec: Víctor Rojo; Re-rec: Heinrich Henkel; Union: STIC;
Eastmancolor and Mexiscope
CAST: Rodolfo de Anda (tramp), Ana Luisa Peluffo (Mónica),
Christa Linder (Angela), Norma Lazareno (Raquel), Irlanda Mora (Laura),
Eric del Castillo (drunken "cossack"), Carlos Suárez (gate man),
?Carlos Henning ("Nazi officer")
NOTES: this was the first film Christa Linder made in Mexico (Invasión siniestra was shot partially in the U.S.), and the opening credits say "presenting the German star, Christa Linder." Watching closely, it appears Linder may have been speaking her lines in English during filming, since her lips movements do not match the Spanish-dubbing very closely at all. Vagabundo en la lluvia is largely a Linder-Peluffo film; Rodolfo de Anda is off-screen for much of the picture and Norma Lazareno is only in one sequence. Linder, despite being dubbed, turns in a decent performance, while Ana Luisa Peluffo overacts wildly as the drunken, cynical, hysterical Mónica. For those keeping score, Peluffo is shown nude (through a frosted glass shower door and from behind), while Linder has a topless attempted-rape scene near the end of the movie. Viewers can also see Eric del Castillo in an unbilled bit as a drunken partygoer dressed like a Cossack, who says "Roosia" and "Spootnik."
Vagabundo en la lluvia was written and directed by Carlos Enrique Taboada, a very prolific screenwriter whose directorial career was largely concentrated in the late '60s and early '70s. Taboada worked in a wide variety of genres, but he is perhaps best known as an author of "thrillers." Vagabundo is a decently-made picture that holds one's interest and is not too predictable. Taboada works a couple of twists and tricks, beginning with the opening sequence: to the accompaniment of ominous music (Cabiati's score--after this section--is lush and jazzy), a black car arrives and two Nazi officers emerge. One of the soldiers pounds on the door of a house and is admitted. "In the name of the Fuhrer," he shouts, "You are all under arrest!" There is a cut to a reverse-shot of the interior of the room, where a crowd of costumed party-goers suddenly erupt in laughter and cheers, greeting the new arrivals. Even though I had seen this film before, on second viewing I was fooled by this pre-credits sequence, wondering if I had put the wrong tape in the VCR!
Angela, one of the guests (Christa Linder is wearing a gauzy harem-girl costume and domino mask), searches through the luxurious house and garden until she locates Laura, wife of the host. Although Laura's husband has forbidden any of the guests to leave (he must have been watching El ángel exterminador), Angela says she has to go to her house on the shores of Lake Tequesquitengo to meet her husband.
However, when she arrives at the isolated house, Angela calls her spouse and lies to him, saying she is still at the party and will see him at the lake house the next day. Angela notices the remains of a makeshift meal, a smoldering cigarette, and a splintered lock on one door. Retrieving a rifle from a closet, she searches the house (a long, fairly suspenseful sequence), and finally spots an intruder in the basement. At gunpoint, she orders him to emerge.
The thief is a bearded, softspoken tramp. He apologizes, saying he was only looking for some food, and offers to work to pay for what he has eaten and for the damage to the door. Angela refuses, and orders him outside into the driving rain. A short time later, she goes to her car to retrieve her suitcases; spotting a shape in the back seat, she thinks it is the tramp and orders him out. Instead, it is an unconscious woman, clad only in a fur coat, some body paint, and a bikini. The tramp appears and carries the woman (who is drunk) inside. Angela thanks him for his assistance and gives him some money.
The tramp goes into a nearby shed, where he settles down to sleep.
A cat wakes him up and--inexplicably--the man becomes enraged and kills
the animal with an axe, then smashes up the contents of the shed before
collapsing while crying and laughing hysterically.
Meanwhile, the drunken woman has revived. Her name is Mónica, and she was a guest at the same party Angela had left. While walking to her car, Mónica felt faint and climbed into Angela's backseat to pass out. The two women get along well; Mónica says her husband is a "machine for making money," and she lives a rich but empty life. When Angela suggests children might make her life more complete, Mónica says giving birth is "the greatest humiliation--not even our insides belong to us. We have to loan them out so some mediocre man can make himself immortal."
Angela sees the distorted face of the tramp peering in through a window, and screams. Mónica, once she hears the story, wants to call the police, but Angela protests, fearing a scandal. However, when she realizes she left the rifle outside by her car, she tries to make a call, but the local operator has gone off duty (the operator and her boyfriend are shown making out in the switchboard room!). Mónica suggests they go for help in Angela's car; Angela refuses to leave, but gives Mónica the keys. However, the car now has two flat tires.
Suddenly, another car drives up. In it is Raquel, who makes her living blackmailing rich married women over their marital infidelities. She has some compromising photos of Angela and is demanding payment or Angela's husband will be informed. Mónica knows Raquel, who once tried to blackmail her; when Mónica refused to pay, Mónica's husband was informed that his wife had a lover. "He had figured on two, so that news made him happy," Mónica adds. She urges Angela not to pay any blackmail money, but agrees to leave the room so the others can discuss the matter.
Angela doesn't have the money Raquel wants, and they argue. Some time later, Mónica--who had fallen asleep--comes back downstairs. Angela says Raquel is gone. Suddenly the lights go out. Mónica becomes hysterical with fear. She decides to try and flee in a small boat tied up at the dock, but when she gets there, the craft won't start--and Raquel's dead body is inside! Mónica returns to the house, but she doesn't buy Angela's speculation that the tramp murdered Raquel. In fact, Mónica deduces that there never was a tramp, and Angela killed Raquel to avoid paying blackmail. Ignoring Angela's protests, Mónica drives off in Raquel's car (which she had discovered near the dock).
The tramp breaks into the house and confronts Angela. She tries to placate him. He complains that "everything that exists belongs to someone else," and tries to rape her. Angela slashes him across the face with a broken bottle, and flees outside. However--as fleeing heroines often do--Angela trips and falls down. But before the tramp can reach her, several shots ring out and kill him. It is Mónica, using Angela's mislaid rifle. She discovered the blackmail photos in Raquel's car, and realized that Angela would have taken these if she had been the murderer. As the two women huddle together in shock, a fleet of cars drive up and disgorge the costumed revelers from the party.
Vagabundo en la lluvia contains a few bits of "socially conscious" dialogue. For example, Mónica says she belongs to a club that helps undernourished children, so they won't "grow up to become Communists." Raquel tells Angela that rich women who marry their husbands for money but have extramarital affairs are dishonest, while she (Raquel) is an honest businesswoman (even though blackmail is her "business") who makes her own way in the world and doesn't rely on men to support her. However, the tramp--despite his comments about private property and rich people--isn't portrayed as someone exploited by the class system, and his obvious (but unspecified) mental illness changes him from a sympathetic figure (in his initial appearance) to a rampaging would-be rapist and murderer. Despite this, the focus of the film is not on the psycho tramp beseiging Angela and Mónica, since he's off-screen for most of the middle portion of the film. Instead, long portions of the picture are devoted to discussions between Mónica and Angela (and, for part of the time, Raquel) about life, marriage, and so forth.
Posted 9 November 1999 by dw45@umail.umd.edu