Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Pages: 238
•
Trim: 6½ x 9¼
978-0-8420-2769-4 • Hardback • December 2000 • $143.00 • (£110.00)
978-0-8420-2771-7 • Paperback • December 2000 • $52.00 • (£40.00)
978-0-7425-7248-5 • eBook • December 2000 • $49.00 • (£38.00)
Jeffrey M. Pilcher is professor of history at the University of Toronto Scarborough.
Chapter 1 List of illustrations
Chapter 2 Acknowledgments
Chapter 3 Chronology
Chapter 4 Introduction
Chapter 5 From Vale Coyote to the Carpa Valentina
Chapter 6 Ambiguous Profiles
Chapter 7 The Details of Fame
Chapter 8 Syndicalism and Stardom
Chapter 9 The Magician
Chapter 10 Around the World or Just the Studio
Chapter 11 A Modern Quixote
Chapter 12 Conclusion
Chapter 13 Notes
Chapter 14 Bibliographical Essay
Chapter 15 Index
Excellent. The ideal biography of Cantinflas would set the comic's life within Mexico's social and political history, within Mexican popular culture, and within the context of the nation's emerging cinema. Solidly researched and splendidly written, Jeffrey Pilcher's book does all this and more. It finds a way to convey to the non-Spanish-speaking reader Cantinflas's imaginative and wonderfully convoluted wordplay....
— Charles Ramírez Berg
An insightful, authoritative, and important look at one of Latin America's most influential and beloved comedians, Mario Moreno, 'Cantinflas.' This is the very best biographical study in any language of an icon of Mexican cinema and culture. Cantinflas'ssignificance grew not only from his image as one of the country's greatest comedians and stars but also from his powerful force in the labor movement of the industry, in politics and in opening up the doors of Hollywood to Mexico. The book masterfully combines the study of this unique star with a solid analysis of the culture and society that predominated in the decades of his life and times. Cultural and biographical history at its best...
— David R. Maciel, California State University
Tracing the phenomenon of the Mexican film comic Cantinflas's rise to fame and subsequent decline within the context of Mexican post-Revolutionary modernity, the author offers a sustained account of changing perceptions of Mexican national identity. A compelling examination of the modern Mexican state from the 1930s through the end of the 1950s....
— Joanne Hershfield
Pilcher's study is an engaging view of twentieth-century Mexico through the lens focused on Mexico's most famous comic. A crisp, straightforward, and compelling look at mid-twentieth-century Mexico through the life of one of its most beloved citizens.....
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