MartinHafer "Aventurera" has a good plot, but unfortunately the script was so watered down that all of its edginess is gone and what's left doesn't exactly make much sense. I assume it's because Mexican censors of the day wouldn't allow the film to be as explicit as it needed to be-- hence it comes off as a bit of a letdown. So, in many ways it is reminiscent of a post-code Hollywood picture--gutted of its sexuality and sordidness.When the film begins, Elena is a happy young woman and her life seems wonderful. However, soon everything is in shambles and she's fighting to keep herself alive. It all begins when Elena's mother takes off with another man. The father, in his grief, commits suicide! Suddenly, Elena is forced to fend for herself and she cannot find a job. A 'friend' offers to help her and after he gives her some adulterated champagne, she awakens to find herself in captivity--forced to work for an evil lady.At this point, you assume Elena is going to be a prostitute--and it looks as if that is what the film WANTS to say. However, this 'debased life' involves being forced to sing at a nightclub!!!! Huh?! Does this make sense?! Nah. They really are attempting, in a very clumsy way, to imply she's a prostitute and sleeps with customers--though you never see anything remotely like this and it's obviously a case of over-sanitizing the plot.What follows is a plot by Elena not only to escape from her boss but to ruin her. The idea of this is great. But, like the whole prostitution angle, the film avoids the gritty angle and wimps out twice. First, the evil slasher Rengo inexplicably does NOT kill or disfigure Elena when he's ordered to but instead becomes her evil guardian angel. Why? I have absolutely NO idea. Second, after carrying out her plan to destroy the woman, Elena gets cold feet and backs off from her plan to ruin the 'lady' and her son. Why? Again, I just don't know!Overall, this could have been a gritty and exciting film. Had it been made in France at the same time, it would have been dark and much less sanitized. While this is supposed to be one of Mexico's better films of the era, I just found it all to be a boring mess which again and again failed to capitalize on a decent story idea.

NYLux Nothing could possibly prepare you for this movie, which is actually several movies interwoven in one. The only thing you need concentrate on is the incandescent presence of Ninon Sevilla in the title role as Elena Tejero, first an obedient middle class daughter wearing horrid plaid dresses and retarded hairdos that suddenly falls into hard times and her work/career runs the gamut quickly from secretary/waitress to cabaret dancer/prostitute. This is a film you will never forget if only because the intense gesturing and posturing (there is no acting here) of Ninon Sevilla is too delicious for words, it needs to be seen, and several times, to be appreciated. I will summarize by stating that her first cabaret appearance is directly related to the "ritual oriental dance" that was a sleazy feature of adventure/film noir and even horror movies since the days of Pola Negri in "The Eyes of the Mummy", which I believe is the first one. The Oriental dance here is set in never-never Arabia, with polyester harem pants, for the girls, false beards for the lascivious men in the marketplace that tug at Ninon's curvaceous forms. Her outfit is not to be missed: A square box hat-turban combination, a necklace of many false karats and veils a plenty. Her orientalized movements are hilarious and jerky, but her sensuality and raw animal charisma comes through to save the day, and I am sure the appreciative male audience back then rewarded this performance with far more erections than laughter. But this is nothing compared to her "Tropical" number which will follow later. We first see Ninon in her dressing room nonchalantly supporting a headdress that consists of two full pineapples with branches and leaves on her head. Although she looks like a giant insect that has sprouted antenna, she acts and moves so convincingly as the "cabaretera" that we start to think this is normal, then she jumps into her elaborate Brazillian number, heavily influenced by Carmen Miranda and in the midst of a cloud of fog her headdress is transformed into a basket of bananas with foil accents that are just too divine for words. You can imagine that this flaming volcano of a dancer would naturally attract as a husband an ultra conservative, nerdish lawyer (Ruben Rojo as Mario Cervera) from one of "the best families in Guadalajara" which here in the States would have translated as a Republican from a Texas oil clan. He also happens to be the son of a the "evil" woman that owns the cabaret where Elena was transformed from studious secretary into dancing harlot. This middle aged woman character, Rosaura Cervera (played by Andrea Palma) is so outlandish, yet believable when one thinks that she anticipated the Mayflower Madam in Manhattan by almost half a century, that it deserves a study of its own, not to mention a seminar for split personality experts. Her demeanor and looks is that of a Latin Marlene Dietrich, cigarette holder included, and she is obviously Elena's nemesis. Their double entendre conversations from the moment they meet again as 'decent' women are the blueprint of drag queen competition dialogs, accompanied by a cavalcade of sudden tragic expressions, fits of fluttering from multi-leveled eye-lashes, twisting of the mouths into serpent-like lip acrobatics, all of which could turn plumbers into female impersonators if adequately imitated with patient study, which actually makes this film a true primer for drag studies. There are many more twists and turn to the story which includes a film-noir jewelry heist, the unbridled passion of an escaped criminal, a murderous, deformed, yet loyal friend of Elena's, and so much more excitement than this summary could possibly describe. An extraordinary creation of kitsch that anticipates Latin soap operas by a generation, this is a groundbreaking document of B cinema, film noir and gender studies.

JohnHowardReid Although they are often linked abroad, music and noir don't usually go together in Hollywood movies. Two exceptions are Anthony Mann's 1944 Minstrel Man and Gregory Ratoff's 1939 Rose of Washington Square in which Tyrone Power plays an even sleazier and less likable male lead than Tito Junco in Alberto Gout's celebrated Mexican noir melodrama, Aventurera (1950). At least Junco manages to stay on his feet, whereas Power not only runs out on and sells out the singing heroine (Alice Faye), but is deservedly beaten up by the comedian, as well as jumping bail and betraying his friends. He's not only a sneaky, repulsive, self-serving little rat like Junco, but he's cowardly as hell as well, which puts him one up on the Mexican "pretty boy". Like Rose, Aventurera is superbly photographed (by Alex Phillips) and also boasts a splendid gallery of supporting figures, led by Andrea Palmer's Joan Crawford-like madame and Miguel Inclan's remarkable Rengo who starts off as the most despicable criminal in the movie, yet becomes at the film's end by far the most sympathetic – and without changing his character! He's still just as hideously loathsome, but now we like him! A remarkable acting job by Miguel Inclan – and all in dumb show. He doesn't speak a word. And as for the lavish staging of the musical numbers, Aventurera easily gets the nod. Albert Ketelbey's "In a Persian Market" receives a truly rousing treatment not only from the orchestra and dancer-choreographer-heroine Ninon Sevilla, but from veteran film editor, Alfredo Rosas Priego (no less than 240 movies, would you believe?). As for Senorita Sevilla, she is nothing short of marvelous. (The film is available on two good DVDs, but the unsubtitled release has far better sound).

nick-1001 The best known in a series of lurid "Rumbera" films, a genre peculiar to Mexican Cinema which combines noir and musical numbers, and usually takes place in the underworld of nightclubs and gangsters. Starring Cuban actress Ninón Sevilla and directed by Alberto Gout who directed her in other similar films with names such as "Perdida" and "Sensualidad". Over the top photography and acting has to be seen to be believed. The image of the star in her "pineapple hat" is memorable. A campy stage show was created in the 1990's based on the film and is still running today in Mexico City. The great Andrea Palma appears in her later, matronly, manifestation as the "madam".