Gaucho Nobility

1915 DramaAdventure 64 minutes Directed by Humberto Cairo

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About Gaucho Nobility

Don José Gran comes from Buenos Aires to La Pampa for horses and hires Juan, a gaucho who tames them. Juan pulls María off a crazed horse. Gran kidnaps her and takes her back to the city. Juan and the ranch hand Don Genaro follow, by cart and then by train, and chase a streetcar to Gran's house. Juan fights Gran inside. María stops Juan from killing him. Back on the pampa, Gran tells the comisario that Juan is a cattle thief. Juan rides Gran down. Gran falls into a ditch and dies.

Cast & crew

More about Gaucho Nobility

Directed by Eduardo Martínez de la Pera, Humberto Cairo, and Ernesto Gunche. Cairo produced. José González Castillo wrote the titles. The story uses José Hernández's Martín Fierro and Rafael Obligado's Santos Vega. Camera by Martínez de la Pera and Gunche. Francisco Canaro wrote music. Filmed in 1914. First shown on 11 August 1915. That opening failed. Castillo then replaced most of the explanatory titles with lines from the two poems, and a second release drew the crowds. English Wikipedia times it at 60 minutes and gives a budget of $20,000 and earnings of about $1,000,000. The Spanish Wikipedia says 64 minutes, a budget of 20,000 pesos, and receipts of 600,000 pesos. An Argentine culture-ministry note says the budget was a little over 20,000 pesos and the take nearly a million. Wikidata lists 64 minutes.

Themes

  • A gaucho hired to catch horses
  • A woman taken to the city
  • A false charge of cattle theft
  • Juan
  • María
  • Don José Gran
  • La Pampa
  • Martín Fierro

Making

The first cut kept plain explanatory titles and did not hold an audience. The second cut put poem lines on the screen instead.

Audiences

The first run failed. After the titles were changed to lines from Martín Fierro and Santos Vega, the second run took, by the Spanish Wikipedia's figure, 600,000 pesos, and by the Argentine culture ministry's figure, nearly a million pesos. English Wikipedia states about $1,000,000.

Look

Eduardo Martínez de la Pera and Ernesto Gunche photographed the pampa, the train, and the Buenos Aires chase. A culture-ministry note credits the film with flashbacks, shot-reverse-shot, parallel editing, and close-ups.

Music

Francisco Canaro composed music for the film.

Preservation

A print survives and is on Wikimedia Commons.

Notes

  • Arturo Mario and María Padín play the gaucho and the woman in the plot as usually told. Also billed are Celestino Petray, Orfilia Rico, and Julio Scarcella.
  • English Wikipedia calls it the highest-grossing Argentine film of its time and says Martínez de la Pera spent the money on Hasta después de la muerte (1916), which failed.
  • A sound remake directed by Francisco Mugica opened in 1937.
  • It was shown again at the Polish Latin American Film Festival on 28 June 2003 and at Mar del Plata on 8 November 2008.

Scenes

  • Juan pulls María off the crazed horse.
  • In the mansion she stops him from killing Gran, saying a gaucho does not kill a defenseless man.
  • Gran's horse goes into a ditch and he dies there.

Influenced by

  • Martín Fierro
  • Santos Vega

Influenced

  • Nobleza gaucha (1937)

Also available

  • Wikimedia Commons (Nobleza Gaucha (1915) .webm)