This movie (which is in the Criterion Collection!) is a hot scramble of piety and passion, sentimentality and sleaze; it’s the ultimate cabareteras (dance hall) flick. Cuban dancing sensation Ninón Sevilla plays Violeta, an up-and-coming performer at Club Changoo who oversteps when she rescues a newborn from the garbage can where one of her fellow artistes has dumped it. This gets her fired and wins the enmity of Rodolfo (Rodolfo Acosta), the Zoot-suited sadistic pimp who fathered the child.
As in his earlier smash Salon Mexico, director Emilio Fernandez switches up the rollercoaster emotions with hits of mambo, rumba and cha cha cha. Around the edges, cinematographer Gabriel Figueroa conjures the kind of urban slum poetry you find in French classics of the 1930s.
We appreciate the support of Fundación Televisa // DCP Courtesy of Janus Films
Perhaps the greatest of the cabareteras movies… Emilio “El Indio” Fernández’s 1951 Víctimas del Pecado (Victims of Sin) should really be titled Fuerzas de la Naturaleza (Forces of Nature). A tumultuous product of Mexican cinema’s Golden Age, the movie is a perfect storm, the confluence of three huge talents: It was directed and cowritten by the nation’s most macho filmmaker, given to boasting “There is only one Mexico, the one I invented”; it was shot by Mexico’s greatest cinematographer, Gabriel Figueroa (an even tougher Communist than his mentor Sergei Eisenstein); and it stars filmdom’s ultimate rumbera, a thirty-year-old bolt of lightning, the Havana-born, sensationally uninhibited dancer Ninón Sevilla.
J Hoberman, Artforum
Victims of Sin... goes full throttle. Ninón Sevilla, the Cuban-born star of musical rumberas films, plays our heroine, Violeta, with irresistible verve. Onstage there’s a mini-anthology of music by Pérez Prado, Pedro Vargas and Rita Montaner (who charms with a spicy number called “Ay José”). But there’s music, too, in the movie’s melodrama.
Nicolas Rapold, New York Times
This irresistible Mexican film, newly restored, takes place in the world of seedy nightclubs, arrogant crime lords, hot music, and beautiful women.
Jeffery M Anderson, Combustible Celluloid
Emilio Fernández
Ninón Sevilla, Tito Junco, Rodolfo Acosta, Rita Montaner, Ismael Pérez, Margarita Ceballos
Mexico
1951
In Spanish with English subtitles
Book Tickets
Sunday March 29
Thursday April 02
Sunday April 05
Wednesday April 08
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Credits
Producer
Guillermo Calderón, Pedro A. Calderón
Screenwriter
Emilio Fernández, Mauricio Magdaleno
Cinematography
Gabriel Figueroa
Editor
Gloria Schoemann
Original Music
Antonio Díaz Conde
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...
Another Dawn
In this overtly political thriller, a union organizer hides out from corrupt government goons with an old college flame — but the net is closing in...
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.
Salón México + Midnight Boogaloo Live!
To celebrate our Mexico Noir series we invited Midnight Boogaloo to get the party going with a mix of salsa, boogaloo and rock & roll. After their set enjoy the seminal dancehall melodrama Salón México, a classic from the Golden Age of Mexican Cinema.
Gabriel Figueroa & Alex Phillips: Painting It Black
In this free talk, educator and filmmaker Devan Scott (himself a professional cinematographer) will introduce you to the artistry of two giants of Mexican cinematagraphy, Gabriel Figueroa and Canadian Alex Phillips.
Take Me In Your Arms
In this boldly stylized musical melodrama mixing reformist politics with outrageous musical numbers, the incomparable Ninón Sevilla is the poor fisherman's daughter navigating a success of dodgy men on her way to true love.
Sensualidad
Prostitute Aurora (Cuban-born dance queen Ninón Sevilla) gets out of prison and exacts her vengeance by seducing the very married and respectable judge who put her behind bars (Fernando Soler). Eros makes a mockery of rectitude and righteousness.
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.