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Alfredo Ripstein (1916 – 2007). D.E.P.

23 January 2007 · Leave a Comment

Parral, Chihuahua native son Alfredo Ripstein, whose career as a producer stretched from the 1930s into the new millenium died this weekend, after becoming ill during his 65th wedding anniversary party. Like so many of his fellow movie moguls north of the border from his era, Ripstein was the son of Jewish immigrants.

Ripstein produced 100 films during his long career. Though he worked with some of the best (Pedro Infante and Gael Garcia Benal) during his 70 year career, he also produced his share of “churros”: Pantano de las ánimas (1957), released in English as “Swamp of the Lost Monsters”, which somehow combined your typical Mexican cowboy movie with a hardboiled mystery with a monster movie. It was so bad, some critics aren’t sure to this day if the whole thing wasn’t a joke.

In his old age, Ripstein was a major figure in the the new wave of Mexican cinema, producing the internationally acclaimed Callejón de los milagros (1995, released as both Miracle Alley and Midaq Alley in English) and, in 2002’s controversial el Crimen del padre Amaro. Both these films were based on foreign novels (Miracle Alley on the contemporary Egyptian novel Nobel Prize-winner Naguib Mahfouz and Padre Amaro on an 1875 work by Portugese novelist, José Maria Eça de Queiroz), recast as Mexican stories in contemporary Mexican settings.

Ripstein was the father of director Arturo Ripstein.

Here’s the trailer form Ripstein’s best known (and probably best overall) production:

Categories: Alfredo Ripstein · Arturo Ripstein · Callejon de los milagros · Chihuahua · Crimen de padre Amaro · Gael Garcia Benal · Jews · Movies and TV · Parral Chih. · Pedro Infante · Provincia

Where was the romanticism?

16 November 2006 · 2 Comments

THIS POST WAS WRITTEN BY THE MYSTERIOUS “LYN_2″, BUT SHE’S NOT REGISTERED ON THIS SITE YET. IT’S HER’S, NOT MINE… I DON’T WRITE NEARLY THIS ELEGANTLY ON THIS SUBJECT. (Richard)

Women who followed the armies during Mexico’s Revolutionary War didn’t look like the women in this scene. They didn’t walk along side their men. They didn’t take long walks down the streets of Chihuahua wearing their finest (clean) colorful dresses. The women were hungry, filthy, tired, overworked, neglected, generally unappreciated, and often suffering from illnesses. That doesn’t take away from the fact that they were devoted, supportive, and played a very valuable role in the fighting forces they “served” in.

There hasn’t been a lot of detail written about the role of women in the Mexican Revolution, but among the lower class, many women became soldaderas, fighting soldiers, or victims. Some women actively opposed the revolution because they were strong supporters of Catholicism and the Church held views that strongly contrasted with the goals of the revolution. There were some women from middle/upper classes who lent support to various sides of the war through their intellectual endeavors. These women were often teachers/ journalists, etc. Many of this group were early feminists. The fact that they served as advisors, strategists, reformists led to many of them being beaten, harassed, imprisoned and even murdered.

The following description comes from an excellent article I found at this link:

http://www.actlab.utexas.edu/~geneve/zapwomen/goetze/paper.html

The soldadera was the most typical role women played in contribution to the Mexican Revolution. It was typical in that it involved a large number of women and that it followed the most accepted gender-based roles for women as caregivers. Although they occasionally fought in battle, these women generally traveled with the revolutionary armies to forage for food, cook meals, nurse the wounded, wash clothes, and other services not provided by the military . Although some authors do not distinguish between the Soldaderas and the female fighters, Andrés Reséndez Fuentes makes a clear distinction between those women who served as a vital support system to the combatants, and those who actually participated in the fighting. Soldaderas endured miserable living conditions, malnutrition, and even childbearing under inhospitable surroundings . Soldaderas whose husbands died in battle often continued in their roles as the soldadera of another soldier . While “no army of the revolution fought without women but each organized female participation in a distinct manner,” . Soldaderas generally remained anonymous and were never recognized for their indispensable contribution to the revolution.

Female fighting soldiers often joined on as soldaderas and moved from that role to one of a full time gun-toting revolutionary. They usually took on masculine roles in their dress, swearing, drinking, and became all around toughs. Female soldiers who showed a lot of skills and had leadership qualities actually did become officers of men and raised in the ranks of the Revolutionary Army.

Victims were usually women who stayed home to tend to their children and to protect their homes. Once the armies ran low on rations, the soldiers would raid their homes for food and supplies. The girls/women who lived in those homes were often raped and if the soldiers suspected them of being connected with the enemy, they were murdered. Zapata’s men were especially famous for raping women throughout their territory.

The woman in the photo was a Yaqui scout named Hermilianda Wong Chew who served under Obregon. She was thought to be a fighting soldier/officer because of her pearl handled pistol and her binoculars. (Thanks Rich!)

Soldaderas walked behind their soldiers because officers would not give a horse to a woman. He would give it to a fighting soldier first and the women would have to carry their children and their personal supplies while their traveled by foot. When an army traveled by train, the women often rode atop or outside (the cars) the train as the cars were reserved for the soldiers. Female fighting soldiers usually provided their own horse.

The role of women differed depending on who’s army they served with…. Villa, Zapata, Carranza, etc. Villa tended to resent the fact that the soldaderas slowed his men down. He liked the ability to move quickly. Zapata admired/appreciated the support offered by the women, whereas Villa was cool to the idea. Villa reportedly had one of his female soldiers shot because she accidently shot one of his men. Ironically, he had her buried with military honors. On another occasion, Villa executed 80 to 90 enemy soldaderas (including thier children) because one of them took a shot at him.

The early Maderistas and Orozquistas of the north did not bring camp followers to the battlefield because the troops generally remained close to home. Also, the Soldaderas tended to be slow moving and deprived the cavalry units of their much valued swiftness. However, this lack of Soldaderas caused logistical problems when it came to medical needs and obtaining food and ammunition. Provisional support units were often set up by only a few women and some men, to provide nursing, food and other services, but were often insufficient and diverted soldiers from fighting.

A few of the remarkable women of the Revolution:

Petra Herrera became an officer or “coronela,” commanding 200 men, according to a report in The Mexican Herald on January 7, 1914. Historian Elizabeth Salas tells us that Herrera, along with 400 other women, took part in the second battle of Torreón as part of Villa’s vanguard. A villista by the name of Cosme Mendoza said, “Herrera was the one who took Torreón on May 30,1914.”

Angela Jimenez, who at 15 witnessed her sister’s attempted rape by a soldier. Her sister grabbed the officer’s gun and killed him and then killed herself. Jimenez joined her father in the army, promising herself to kill the federales. Jimenez became a spy, soldier and explosives expert.
Elisa Grienssen Zambrano of Parral, Chihuahua was a 13 yr. old teacher who commanded men and women of Parral to repel and expel a “punitive expedition” from the American army in April 1916. The American soldiers were on a mission to apprehend Gen. Francisco Villa. Elisa was so indignant that Americans would invade Mexico’s sovereign territory that she organized women and school children to surround the North American commander, Frank Tompkins. Shortly, men in the town joined her and armed only with rocks, tomatoes, and shouts of “Viva Mexico, Viva Villa”, they succeeded in forcing him and his men to retreat. When Villa asked Elisa “how did you do it?” She answered him, “We did it for Mexico”.

*** A faded oil painting of Elisa Grienssen Zambrano is still on the wall of Villa’s museum.

In 1911, Profesora Delores Jiménez y Muro founded the group Regeneración y Concordia from her prison cell. The group’s purpose was to “improve the lot of indigenous races, campesinos, obreros, unify revolutionary forces, and elevate women economically, morally and intellectually,”. In March 1911, Jiménez put together the Political and Social Plan, which was a conspiracy to bring Madero to power by a rebellion near Mexico City. Her Plan was unusual because it outlined the need for extensive social and economic reforms, rather than simply the desire for political change at the top. She specifically recognized in the Plan that the daily wages of both men and women in urban and rural areas needed to be increased, as women made up more of the “economically active” population than was acknowledged by the official census. Emiliano Zapata was very enthusiastic about Jiménez’s Plan, particularly the part calling for the restitution of usurped village lands, and invited her to join his cause in Morelos. She did so after the death of Madero in 1913, and remained there until Zapata’s assassination in 1919, well after her seventieth birthday. Although Dolores Jiménez y Muro was an active revolutionary for almost twenty years and provided significant contributions to history, she has received little attention from academics.

One of the most famous female soldiers was Margarita Neri, who became a legendary Zapatista commander. “So many legends surround Neri that she is portrayed as both commanding Zapatistas in Morelos and as cutting off the ears of Zapatistas sent to recruit her. Despite the mass of contradictory accounts, it seems that Margarita Neri was a capable and respected guerrilla commander.

additional links:

http://epcc.edu/nwlibrary/borderlands/21_soldaderas.htm http://www.sibleynaturecenter.org/essays/moseying/history/060301_liberatedwomen.html

Categories: Alvaro Obregon · Chihuahua · Ciudad Juarez · Emiliano Zapata · La Raza (Mexican cultures and peoples) · Luz Corral · Mexican History 1910-20 (Revolution) · Pancho Villa · Parral Chih. · Real Mexico

Pancho and Woodrow… and Lyn and Luz and Ramon Novarro

20 February 2005 · 1 Comment

Pancho Villa is STILL causing problems for us foreigners. Nah… not the “Frente Pancho Villa” marxist groups here in Mexico City… just thinking about the guy. I’d set out to write Mexican history years ago, but bumping into folks like Pancho can lead to some strange detours into folklore and modern legends, Masonic conspiracy theories, Woodrow Wilson’s family tree and… Hollywood!

And to think all I had to do was translate an obituary about an old Zapatista. Zapata – Villa… can’t talk about one without someone bringing up the other. Lynn Keelan send along her remininces of an encounter with Luz Corral, Villa’s “official” widow (probating the will of a man with 23 wives, 320 children and seveal mistresses must have taken some doing). James B. Baker’s 1967 account of his adventures as a hacienda manager for the Hearsts, and his own encounters with Villa and Luz Corral are the source for the photo of young Luz. Luz in 1974 is from “Calfornia Native Newsletter”, a link included in Lynn’s original piece for Lonely Planet Thorn Tree.

The Mexican Robin Hood
(from “Mexican History for Gringos”)

Pancho Villa by Jose Clemente Orozco (oil on canvas, 1931)

It wasn’t so much the intellectuals, but the Romantics who tried to “claim” Pancho Villa. Villa was an astute businessman – of sorts – who understood the value of good public relations. For good or bad, he was the public face of the Revolution in the United States. He operated closest to the United States border, was willing to cooperate with foreign reporters, and “looked” like a Mexican revolutionary. Never mind that he normally wore a standard army cap, or sometimes a British Indian Army style solar topee. North Americans expected someone like Zapata, with a sombrero and a big mustache. But Zapata operated in the south, far from California. Pancho Villa was much more available. Villa had the big mustache, and he was willing to wear a sombrero for the cameras.

Not all Villa’s press in the United States was favorable. William Randolph Hearst, the media mogul of his day, also owned extensive cattle ranches in Chihuahua and Sonora. Villa financed his army through cattle sales – the cattle belonged to Hearst. Driven across the border into Arizona, the cattle were sold to small ranchers who didn’t ask questions, and didn’t like rich California newspaper owners either. In Hearst’s newspapers, Villa was nothing but a bloodthirsty bandit[1].

Hearst’s greatest rival was the New York Times. To the Times, Villa was a Mexican Robin Hood. George Carrothers, the Times reporter, was treated more as a foreign ambassador than a war correspondent. With good reason: Carrothers had a cousin named Woodrow Wilson: Villa was hardly the simple bandit chief he sometimes seemed. His staff included social reformers, anxious to try out new theories in Villa controlled territories, politically astute civilians, competent financial advisors, adventurers, military men (Villa paid his army regularly, and attracted willing soldiers and professional officers to his side), and more than a few cold-blooded killers.

But what impressed Carrothers’ cousin Woodrow about Villa was that he was winning, and Wilson concluded someone – anyone – would run Mexico better than Huerta. And Wilson had seen the pictures of Villa in action. There had been battle photographers before 1910, but cameras were too bulky to carry. Most war photos were staged after the battle. Portable cameras, and movie cameras were available by the time the Mexican Revolution started. Also, there had been advances in printing, so photographs could now be printed in the newspapers. Finally, people had begun going to the movies. People were still amazed to see films of President Wilson taking a walk. A real battle was something only soldiers (and a few adventurous tourists – or unfortunate bystanders, like those in El Paso) ever saw. Raoul Walsh, a pioneering Hollywood film director, claimed he only wanted to bring the reality of war to the people. The closest battlefield to Hollywood was just across the border from Arizona, where Pancho Villa was attacking the Federal Army. Walsh found a cooperative Pancho Villa ready to help. Walsh’s The Life of Pancho Villa was one of Hollywood’s first international hit. Who used who is an open question, but Villa did become the world’s first film star[2].

When the light at dawn wasn’t good for Walsh’s cameraman, executions would be rescheduled for later in the morning. When Walsh wanted to film a battle scene, Villa was willing to oblige. Furthermore, he added that the Federal Army would cooperate, so they could stage a battle. Unfortunately, Villa just didn’t have enough ammunition to make the thing look real. If Walsh could just buy the ammunition, they would have a great newsreel.

Villa, of course, hadn’t told the Federal Army a thing about the “staged” battle. With the cameras rolling, the Division of the North overran the Federal positions. It was an unimportant battle, and as bloody as any in the Revolution, but notable for being the first battle ever captured on film and, the first battle most moviegoers ever saw. Villa’s staff showed real creativity on several occasions, not just when the cameras were rolling. They employed a “Trojan Horse” strategy when they captured Ciudad Juarez.

Taking over a telegraph station, they convinced the Federal garrison in the city that they were Federal reinforcements. It was imperative to keep the tracks clear. The Army cleared the tracks, and Villa’s forces arrived in record time.

Villa fought brilliantly, but what exactly he fought for was not always clear. “Exterminating justice” is what Villa told John Reed. Social and economic reforms introduced in Villaista-controlled territories were usually successful, but did not seem to follow any particular plan or philosophy. The reforms in Villista territory seemed to have as much to do with whether the person in charge read socialist or communist or capitalist literature as anything. Or if they even read. In some places, “justice” meant destroying the debt records in the local hacienda office and lynching unpopular businessmen and priests.

Originally, Villa had rebelled to avenge Madero. But, as the Revolution dragged on, he ignored his putative leader, Carrenza, and joined forces with Zapata. The Zapatistas had some social program and it looked, for a time, that either Zapata or Villa would become President. Zapata didn’t want the job. There is a famous photograph of the two, and their aides, gathered around the “throne” Porfirio Diaz used in the Palacio Nacional. Villa is sitting in the chair, laughing at the joke. The unsmiling Zapata was asked to also sit in the chair, but suggested instead that the burn it.

For Zapata, “justice” worked from the bottom up. To Villa, “justice” came from the man in charge. A few years later, the Russian Revolution ran into the same conflicting visions in the fights between the “soviets” (village units) and the Communist Party. Foreigners have always expected Mexico to follow European models, and forget that Europeans sometimes follow Mexican ones. John Reed, the American Communist, saw the Villa-Zapata forces as Communists. So did a lot of American businessmen. Villa certainly attracted Communist supporters, and is still seen as a Communist revolutionary[3].

More important than the political labels was the simple fact that the Constitutionalists were winning. The United States began shifting support to Carrenza. Zapata was eventually murdered, and his rebellion collapsed. Obregón turned his attention to destroying Villa, reducing his armies to guerrilla bands. Villa eventually launched attacks on the United States, which ended his foreign support. Eventually, he was persuaded to end his rebellion and retire to a hacienda. Psychologists have speculated on Villa’s mental condition. He could kill people without a second thought, even civilians. How many he personally murdered is still unknown[4].

Perhaps hundreds. On the other hand, the man betrayed very real emotional depth. At a memorial service for Madero, he broke down and wept. His admiration and love for the little landowner was genuine. He loved women – all too much. The stories of him raping rich men’s daughters and wives are exaggerated, but he was sexually hyperactive. He married again and again and again. He went to the trouble to obtain marriage certificates for at least 23 wives, making him one of the champion bigamists of all times. None of his wives ever spoke of him as anything but loving and gentle. His many children, both by his wives, by several girlfriends, and one-night stands, all remember a particularly fond and doting father.Villa loved children. It wasn’t unusual for wealthy Mexicans then – and to some extent now – to shelter and educate homeless children. Melichor Ocampo, who was abandoned as a baby on the local hacienda’s doorstep, was unusual only in inheriting his foster mother’s fortune. Madero had 12 orphans living on his hacienda. Part of Villa’s “retirement package” when he agreed to surrender to the new Constitutional government included a hacienda. He brought a trainload of street children from Mexico City – 300 of them – to the hacienda to be given a decent home and the Villa name. And, most importantly to Villa, an education: never having a chance to go to school, the “Mexican Robin Hood” took to education with a vengeance. Adult literacy was Pancho Villa’s last campaign. He had always understood the value of propaganda. Photographs of the ex-guerrilla leader taking classes along with the children, or reading to them, were used across Mexico to advertise educational programs.

Villa’s life is largely a mystery, and so is his death. He had made his hacienda a model farm along the lines of Madero’s visions. It had the schools, clinics, decent housing, its own electrical plant, and telegraph office. Like the old haciendas, it had a company store, but with a twist. The hacienda was too far from Parral for the workers to go shopping, so the hacienda bought wholesale and sold items below retail to workers and neighboring villages – a sort of Revolutionary “Sam’s Club”. Obregón’s last surviving important rival was regularly featured in the press, and was hardly forgotten. When the government, hoping to revive the economy, offered to lease some old haciendas to American companies, Villa’s loud and public objections to the anti-revolutionary idea forced the government to change its mind. And, Obregón’s government hoped to re-establish diplomatic relations with the United States: one minor issue with the United States was lingering resentment of Pancho Villa. His attack on New Mexico, and a few raids into Texas, could not be forgiven. After all, he had successfully attacked the gringos, and might still cause problems.

So, what happened in Parral on July 20, 1923 isn’t a complete mystery. Villa was driving home from a christening when an unknown group of men – in a house rented the day before, then barricaded – opened fire on the car, killing all 8 occupants. The men rode out of town on horseback, and were never seen again. What happened three years later is even stranger. Someone dug up Villa’s body and cut off the head. Who, or why? Theories range from probable (old enemies still out for revenge – and their own ideas about “justice — or ghoulish souvenir hunters), to implausible (a favorite with American newspapers of the time had Villa’s head stolen by California gangsters in the pay of an Oklahoma spinster with an unrequited love for the ex “movie star”). There are other gringo suspects: Yale University and Laurel and Hardy.

A story that has taken on popularity since the 1990s is that the head was taken by members of Yale’s ultra-secret “Skull and Bones” society, which uses a human skull in its rituals. The society is connected with the York Rite Masons (Poinsett’s “Yorkistas”) and both George Bushes are members of the organization. Prescott Bush, father of the first George Bush, was also a member, and was inducted a few weeks after the head disappeared. How anyone would have known that the student joining the organization in 1926 would have a son who ran the CIA and later would be President of the United States, and a grandson who would also be President, is never quite explained. It is known that Villa fascinated, among many others, Stan Laurel, the early film comedian. Periodically, Laurel went to Mexico to get drunk, away from public scrutiny. According to one legend, Laurel looked up from his gin bottle in a Parral hotel room just in time to witness Villa’s murder. That implausible story leads to the even stranger rumor that Laurel — with or without Oliver Hardy’s assistance – took the head. Woodrow Wilson would seem a likely culprit, but he was a bed-ridden invalid by this time.

[1] It didn’t help Villa’s reputation any when Ambrose Bierce, a respected North American author, Civil War veteran and Hearst reporter, disappeared while searching for Villa’s army. Bierce was elderly and depressed. He may have committed suicide, he may have simply died, he may have gotten lost in the desert, or he may have been killed after joining the revolution – the possibility Carlos Fuentes used for his novel, “The Old Gringo”.

[2] Early films tended to “bleach out” the actors, and dark haired, dark-skinned men like Villa had an advantage. The first major Hollywood stars were the south Italian, Rudolph Valentino and the Mexican, Ramon Novarro. Valentino died before sound was added to films, and Novarro’s thick accent made it hard for him to continue working. He became a civil rights activist, fighting for Mexican-American rights in the 1940s, and gay rights in the late 1960s.
Ramon Novarro

[3] Communist banners in Mexico often show Marx, Lenin, Stalin and Pancho Villa. Unidad Habitacional Allepetlalli in Xochimilco includes streets named for Marx, Engels, Stalin and Villa.

[4] One story, possibly exaggerated, has Villa calmly gunning down an off-key singer who interrupted him during a newspaper interview.

… and now, the REST OF THE STORY…
(courtesy of Lynn Keegan)

Pancho and “official” wife, Luz Corral (E. Bryant Holman, ca. 1920)

In 1971, I was at a party in Boulder, Colorado. One of the asst. professors at CU was dancing with me and he mentioned that he had just returned from a short trip to Mexico. He went there to interview Pancho Villa’s widow. The following summer, Jim and I were in Durango and I kept noticing so many old women (dressed in long black dresses and veils) begging for alms outside the churches. Jim told me that they were the widows of the revolution. It occured to me that that era was coming to a close and I asked him if we could stop off in Chihuahua to visit the Villa Museo on our way home. I recalled watching an interview with Anthony Quinn on TV (Dick Cavett Show). He was telling stories about watching his father riding atop a train in northern Mexico with a bunch of other Villa soldiers as they headed into battle. At this time, I didn’t know diddly or squat about much Mexican history, but the Revolutionary War era sounded very romantic to me. I wanted to follow up.

We arrived in Chihuahua by bus, walked past a large prison, and finally located the Villa Museo. We walked inside, couldn’t find anyone around. So I continued to try to find a person to pay or to ask permission from. That’s when I saw a very old woman sitting in a rocking chair in a dimly lit room of the house. She didn’t speak English and I didn’t speak Spanish, so I got my husband to translate for us. That’s when he told me that she was “the lady of the house”…. the widow Villa.

I asked her if she would speak to us for a little bit. She was in no condition to be the “hostess with the mostess”, but she was agreeable. She was feeble and kind. She looked like all the other widows (dressed in total black, shawl, veil, dress and stockings). Her eyesight was nearly gone and that probably explained the darkened room. After looking up on the internet for some info about Villa’s widow, I should note that I found an article and photo of Luz Corral. She doesn’t appear to be blind at all. Perhaps she wasn’t feeling well on the day we met. In this photo taken in 1974, she appears to be healthy and alert. I also noticed that she’s wearing a print blouse (not black).

Here’s the rub….. understand that we were very young and very inexperienced. My questions to her were very superficial, and I was dealing with a translator (hubby) who was feeling very embarrassed about my nerve. He felt like a trespasser and didn’t feel comfortable about doing this at all. I didn’t take any notes and can’t remember a thing she told us. We spent about 20 min. with her. In the back of my head I kept thinking about the fact that Villa was a womanizer and that he had several wives (about 8 I think), so I wanted to be very careful about what I asked. To this day, I don’t know where she fit into the time-line. All I knew was that she got the house and she was the only widow still around. Anybody who knows me, knows that I always travel with my camera. Problem was that it wasn’t the same one I have today. It was a cheapo kodak camera with cube flash on the top. Therein lies the second rub….. I asked her if I could take a pic of her. She said “that would be fine”. My cube was used up and there was no light in the room. So I have no notes… and two completely blackened photos to show for it.

The Museo is still in Chihuahua, but as far as I know, all the Revolutionary widows are deceased. The bullet riddled car that Pancho Villa was riding in when he was assassinated is still parked in the patio of his former home.

The article says that Dona Luz Corral de Villa was awarded the great sum of 10 pesos per day for her military pension. That’s approx. 75 cents.