The father of contemporary comedy in Mexico, Mario Moreno Reyes, “Cantinflas,” is also the title of the film now showing, directed by Sebastian del Amo, nominated by the Mexican Academy of Cinematographic Arts and Sciences to represent Mexico for the Oscar for Best Foreign-Language Film.
For many, Moreno was not only Mexico’s father of comedy, but the father of the Republic’s modern entertainment industry.
Though that is a large claim, and one contested by some in the entertainment field, it’s clear that for 50 years Moreno — as Cantinflas — was the most well-known, and most well-liked, living Mexican. A bus driver in Guatemala once told me that Cantinflas was the “most famous Mexican since that pistolero ‘Pepe’ Villa.” In the 1980s a cabbie in Mexico City confided that not only was Cantinflas “bigger and better known than (then-President) Miguel de la Madrid,” but that the comedian should be the president.
In actual fact, many Mexicans have agreed with the hackie: in several of Mexico’s presidential elections he polled thousands of write-in votes.
Mario Moreno made his first film in 1936, and though the changes in Mexico’s film industry since have been awesome and countless, his mischievous, absurdist and earnest peladito (literally, a “little hairless person,” but meaning, a poor little guy) remained a pacesetter through his last film, “El Barrendero” (“The Street Sweeper”) in 1981.
This is no slight achievement. Mexico’s film industry made its way in often torturous fashion beyond threadbare productions to the advent of improved sound, new cameras, from dilapidated warehouse studios to big studios, then to shrinking studios, government studios, big color, big budgets, the near-collapse of the industry, huge South American sales, booming U.S. sales, the shadow of government censors and overseers, enthusiasm for Mexican cowboys, mania for romantic singing stars, rivalries with television, video cassette recorders, rock and roll, on to digital cutting and computerized sound, special effects and more recently computerized imagery.
Over that time, Mario Moreno was a forerunner, the only consistent big-money earner, becoming an incomparable institutional influence, the king comedian-star-sociologist-entrepreneur of Mexican show business.
The comedian’s films, in theaters and on television, have been seen by millions far beyond Mexico’s borders, in every country, city and village where Spanish is spoken, including much of the United States.
Moreno began his career inauspiciously in Xalapa, Veracruz. His father, a Mexico City mailman, had gotten 15-year-old Mario a job in the post office of the city of Veracruz. But the youngster soon had a run-in with the postmaster and walked off the job. Landing in Xalapa, he happened onto a carpa (large tent where popular entertainment is performed) and took an inspired chance. He asked to join the performers, and tried out. He told jokes, danced and sang amusing songs. The audience applauded and Mario Moreno had found his calling.
Chupamirto
The character of Cantinflas was still to be born. That personage was inspired by an early cartoon strip called Chupamirto, drawn by Jesus Acosta Cabrera. Soon, Chupamirto’s down-at-the-heels style of clothing was adopted by Moreno: the tattered shirt and vest, the baggy trousers that always seemed about to fall off, the shrunken hat.
Bizarre dialogue
But it was the peladito’s bizarre speech patterns — hilarious circumlocutions concerning even the simplest thing — that made Moreno a cultural phenomenon. This marvelously absurd manner of using Spanish became so popular that to cantinflar became the newest common Spanish verb, cantinflesco the newest adjective. At Moreno’s funeral in April 1993, some high-ranking attendants saluted the comedian by cantinfleando: “No, when my wife told me, what did I tell you, you don’t say; well, I will tell you, she tells me. Don’t I tell you, compadre.”
Fine-tuning
But the character of Cantinflas took time to evolve. Moreno long worked the poorest barrios of Mexico City, playing daily in las carpas, which, under a single tent, tried to present something for everyone: a vaudeville show, circus-clown performances, acrobats, trained dog acts, song-and-dance teams and fall-down comics. It was here that Moreno fine-tuned his penniless little bum.
Heady leap
By the mid-1930s, a number of carpa performers were making the heady leap from tent shows to films. Moreno made his first picture in 1936 and then was cast as the co-star of 1937’s “Asi es mi Tierra” (“That’s My Country”).
The film dealt with the Mexican Revolution of 1910, but Moreno, rather than using the language of revolutionary times, chattered in the slang then popular in urban Mexico, and stole the picture.
This nimble high jump signaled the advent of a number of unforeseen successes for Moreno: the acceptance by all classes of a delightfully sympathetic and lighthearted, bottom-of-the-ladder character who did not always lose, who was worthwhile and with whom the poor of Mexico easily identified; the innovative stroke of having a pelado use up-to-date slang to comment on significant themes — this created a new aesthetic space in which a lower class character utilized social themes as raw material for his jokes (not the only borrowing from Charlie Chaplin); an inventive, absurdist mode of expression that stirred affection as it poked fun at Mexican
Spanish usage and the way certain classes misshaped the language.
These successes were soon to obliterate the identity of Cantinflas’ creator.
This is the first in a two-part series.