The Grey Automobile
About The Grey Automobile
In 1915 a gang in a grey car runs through Mexico City with robberies, kidnappings, and killings. Detective Juan Manuel Cabrera, a real policeman playing himself, tracks the crew. Enrique Rosas cut in footage he had shot of the thieves' actual execution. The serial ends with the gang in custody.
Cast & crew
More about The Grey Automobile
Enrique Rosas produced, directed, photographed, and edited the original twelve-part serial, written with José Manuel Ramos and Miguel Necoechea. It opened in Mexico City on 11, 12, and 13 December 1919. The complete serial ran about 390 minutes. Miguel Vigueras recut it in 1933 to 117 minutes.
Themes
Background
The crimes the serial stages took place in Mexico City in 1915, during the Revolution, when a car was still a rare thing to use for a robbery.
Making
Rosas already had film of the firing squad. He built the acted episodes around that record and around Cabrera, who had worked the real case.
Look
Enrique Rosas shot the black-and-white episodes himself, including the street scenes and the execution footage.
Music
José María Serralde composed a score for the 2016 Cineteca screening of the restoration. The 1919 serial was silent.
Preservation
The Cineteca Nacional premiered a 223-minute restoration on 7 April 2016.
Notes
- María Tereza Montoya and Juan Canals de Homs are in the cast with Cabrera.
- In 2009 the Rosas Priego family placed the nitrate rolls with the Cineteca Nacional.
- Restoration work started in 2012 from a tinted 1937 print, the 1933 version, and a shortened 1920 serial that held 88 scenes not in the other copies.
Scenes
- The grey car is the gang's way through the city.
- Rosas inserts his footage of the thieves facing the firing squad.
Also available
- Cineteca Nacional Blu-ray (2018, limited two-disc edition)