In which wealthy industrialist Arturo de Cordova purchases the titular nude sculpture of his lover (María Félix) as an anniversary gift for his innocent, adoring wife. It’s not long afterwards that the sickly wife dies, though untangling just how and why is part of the pleasure of this demented melodrama from Roberto Gavaldón (La Otra).
Screen siren María Félix, nicknamed “La Doña”, later described herself as “the number one enemy of Mexican family morals”, and here she’s playing a quintessential femme fatale, who uses her beauty as a means to get ahead in a dog-eat-dog world. Yet she emerges as the most complex and intriguing character in the frame, as tragic a the blameless wife.
DP Alex Phillips hailed from Renfrew, Ontario, but went on to shoot more than 200 films in Mexico, working with all the major directors of the “golden age”, including Buñuel, Bracho, and of course Gavaldón.
Televisa Univision All Rights Reserved. We appreciate the support of Fundación Televisa // DCP Courtesy of Cineteca Nacional México
This feverishly perverse saga of amor loco—something like the necro-noir of Laura crossed with the tranced-out style of Last Year at Marienbad—is packed with enough outré flourishes to satisfy a card-carrying Dadaist.
Film at Lincoln Centre
The most perverse of all noirs… The Kneeling Goddess melts noir’s icy cool—and Mexico’s moneyed elite—with Baudelairean passion.
Jason Sanders
Roberto Gavaldón
María Félix, Arturo de Córdova, Rosario Granados
Mexico
1947
In Spanish with English subtitles
Book Tickets
Tuesday April 07
Indigenous & Community Access
Indigenous Access Tickets Community Access Tickets Ticket Donation Requests
Credits
Producer
Rodolfo Lowenthal
Screenwriter
Roberto Gavaldón, José Revueltas
Cinematography
Alex Phillips
Editor
Charles L. Kimball
Original Music
Rodolfo Halffter
Production Design
Manuel Fontanals
Also in This Series: Mexico Noir
Curated by best-selling novelist Silvia Moreno-Garcia (Mexican Gothic), Mexico Noir is an invitation to discover a new shadow world.
The Night Falls
An arrogant, womanizing sports star eventually gets his comeuppance in this jet-black crime drama from director Roberto Gavaldón.
In the Palm of Your Hand
Charming, (over-)confident clairvoyant Professor Karin hits the jackpot when he hears about a beautiful widow whose millionaire husband has just died. But you don't need to be psychic to see that blackmailing a killer may not be his best idea...
The Kneeling Goddess
In which wealthy industrialist Arturo de Cordova purchases the titular nude sculpture of his lover (María Félix) as an anniversary gift for his innocent, adoring wife. Soon enough the wife is dead, though untangling just how and why is part of the fun.
The Skeleton of Mrs Morales
In this delightful black comedy, an avuncular taxidermist (our old amigo Arturo de Córdova) is beloved by many but not his wife (Amparo Rivelles), a religious fanatic who can't bear to be touched. One day she pushes him too far...
Streetwalker
Middle class and married, Elena (Miroslava Stern) has been seduced by an unscrupulous swindler, who turns out to be the pimp of Maria (Elda Peralta), a prostitute and Elena's estranged sister. But are they really so different under the skin?
Victims of Sin
This movie is a hot scramble of piety and passion, sentimentality and sleaze. Ninón Sevilla plays Violeta, a rumba sensation who oversteps when she rescues a newborn from the trash. This gets her fired and wins the enmity of the pimp who fathered the kid.
El Suavecito
Victor Parra is Roberto, "el Suavecito", the smoothie. Sprinkling his Spanish with slang and English, and sporting a Zoot suit, he's a gangster-wannabe, an obnoxious macho who isn't quite as tough as he likes to make out...
Salón México
Cheated by her pimp, Mercedes recklessly steals his wallet and is only saved from a severe beating by the intervention of a kindly policeman. Hard-hitting social realism sits beside patriotic sentimentality and multiple red hot dance sequences.
Crepúsculo
A brain surgeon (Arturo de Córdova) begins to doubt his own sanity when the woman he's in love with (Gloria Marin) marries his brother — and he starts fantasizing about murder.