Maravilla Del Toreo (1943)
Directed by Raphael J. Sevilla
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Synopsis by Hal Erickson
Maravilla del Toreo was one of the few Mexican bullfight dramas of the 1940s to attain a widespread showing in the U.S. Perhaps this was due to the novelty value of the film's star: Conchita Citron, the world's foremost female bullfighter. As an added box-office bonus, Citron is teamed with Mexico's top matador, Pepe Ortiz. The semi-autobiographical plot details Citron's rise to fame as Ortiz' protégé. The story is fictionalized by having the two stars as two-thirds of a romantic triangle. Neither Citron nor Ortiz can act, but this hardly matters in the light of the film's exciting -- and disturbingly authentic -- bullring sequences.