René Cardona
Birthday: 1905-10-09
Place of Birth: Havana, Cuba
Biography: René Cardona (October 8, 1905 – April 25, 1988) was a Mexican director, actor, producer, screenwriter, and film editor, who was prominent during part of the Golden Age of Mexican cinema. René Cardona was born in Havana, Cuba, on October 8, 1905, and began medical school in Cuba, but due to the political problems of the island, he and his family moved to New York City in 1926, where he continued his studies. Economic circumstances experienced by his family caused him to leave his studies. He befriended famous actor Rodolfo Valentino and obtained work as an extra in several films, until 1929 when he produced, wrote, directed and starred in the first Spanish-language film made in Hollywood, Sombras habaneras (Havana Shadows). He also had the opportunity to work in various positions in the film industry such as second assistant, technical advisor and first assistant director, and learned film and lighting technique. In 1932, he moved to Mexico, where he debuted as an actor and met Julieta Zacarías, sister of the director Miguel Zacarías, and soon after married her. His wife's support would be central to his career in Mexican cinema, in films Mano a mano (1932) directed by Ramón Peón and Sobre las olas (1932) directed by Zacarías. At this early stage as an actor, Cardona participated in three key Mexican films Marihuana (1936), El baúl macabro (1936) and Allá en el Rancho Grande (1936), which officially inaugurate the golden age of Mexican cinema and made stars of its protagonists: Esther Fernández, Tito Guízar, and Cardona.
Movies
When Love Laughs
José Mojica plays a singing vacquero who stops off in la cantina to have muchas cervezas with los mu...
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Common Clay
A maid with a checkered past falls in love with the son in the posh household where she works, and g...
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Masajista de señoras
This fun comedy presents two masseurs who, by getting a job, dress up as women and thus live comic a...
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The Vengeance of the Crying Woman
Santo and Mantequilla Nápoles team up to end the curse of La Llorona by getting ahold of a special m...
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Carne de Cabaret
This is the Spanish-language version of Ten Cents a Dance (1931), shot concurrently with a different...
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La Bandida
During a lull in the Mexican Revolution when Francisco Madero became president and attempted to impl...
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Tempestad
The emotional journeys of two women victimized by corruption and injustice in Mexico and of the love...
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Guns and Guts
An outlaw and a scorned husband both team up to track down and kill the man that wronged them. Along...
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El pequeño Robin Hood
Directed by René Cardona, and written by René Cardona Jr., «El Pequeño Robin Hood» is a 1975 Adventu...
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La mula de Cullen Baker
A young Cullen Baker rides his mule throughout the old west with his father, when bandits attack the...
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Soledad
Soledad, a maid born in Argentina, works at a Mexican farm. The son of her employer will deceive her...
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Zindy, the Swamp Boy
The story is about a fugitive who lives apart from society in a jungle area with the company of his ...
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The Rock of Souls
The love between María Ángela and Fernando is impossible because there's an ancient history of hate ...
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Fantastic Voyage in a Baloon
1862. Commodore Sir Francis and inventor Douglas initiated on behalf of the Royal Society of London ...
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The Fury of the Karate Experts
An evil priestess and her twin sister battle for control of a powerful crystal....
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El conde de Montecristo
Based on the famous novel by Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo tells the story of a man who...
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A los cuatro vientos
Career-biography of a fictional ranchera singer, played by Rosita Quintana....
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El secreto del sacerdote
Three boys grow up to be a priest, a military commander and the town mayor....
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Cartas Marcadas
A tale of intrigue and deceit concerning two young lovers who, despite the fact that their relations...
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Dos caballeros de espada
It's Mexico in the 1600's. Fifteen years after arriving from Spain, Pedro "Dagoberto Rodríguez" teac...
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La Casa Que Arde de Noche
A prostitute enters a brothel and establishes a rivalry faking love with the old owner....
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Divorciadas
Three newly unmarried women room together, start a business, share the ups and downs of their love l...
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El abanico de Lady Windermere
A woman with a dubious reputation causes problems in an aristocratic marriage....
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The Brainiac
In 1661 Mexico, the Baron Vitelius of Astara is sentenced to be burned alive by the Holy Inquisition...
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Crónica roja
After one is arrested - possibly unjustly - for murder, the lives of two brothers spiral out of cont...
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The Macabre Trunk
A crazed scientist tries to keep his terminally ill wife alive by transfusing into her the blood of ...
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Girl Merchants
A young French woman travels to South America for a job offer and ends up a prisoner in a slave camp...
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Un novio para dos hermanas
Pili and uncle Angel travel to Mexico to see Mili dancing at her debut in a theater in the capital. ...
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Los hijos de Rancho Grande
Sequel to Alla en el Rancho Grande, twenty years later -- sons and daughters of the original charact...
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El genial Detective Peter Pérez
A clumsy investigator must unravel a deadly mystery when a passenger is killed during a long-distanc...
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As negro
Two poor children swear an oath: one will study, the other will work and support them both. The work...
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Allá en el Rancho Grande
Two good friends — the owner and general manager of a ranch — fall in love with the same girl at the...
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Con su amable permiso
Unassuming elderly gent is installed as Mayor, by a cabal of financiers that expect to use him as a ...
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Los encapuchados del infierno
Husband and wife team of hooded avengers, First of three in series....
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Aventuras de las hermanas X
Adventure film about two sisters looking revenge against the man who murdered their father....
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El deseo llega de noche
Prison colony on an island: the staff Doctor has some neuroses he's trying to overcome, and his "wea...
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Chanoc en las garras de las fieras
Comic-book adaptation: Tarzan-type in the Mexican outback....
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Manuel Saldivar, el texano
Cowboy-justice dude has to figure out who the masterminds are behind a string of murders....
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¡Ay qué rechula es Puebla!
Two charros from Hacienda A come a-courtin' to hacienda B, owned by a friend of their father's. Also...
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Pito Pérez se va de bracero
Alcoholic hobo drifts across the border and has a series of random adventures....
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Mala yerba
Plantation owner is way too much into his peasant girls. It causes problems....
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Mulata
In the port of Havana, two biracial children, Mateo (Ricardo Román) and Caridad (Ninón Sevilla) grow...
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Prisión de mujeres
'Prisión de Mujeres' is a film by Fernando A. Rivero that narrates a harsh reality: the strength of ...
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Cyclone
An airplane goes down in the ocean during a storm and a few survivors find refuge on a small tour bo...
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The Diabolical Duchess
A rare and impossible to find Mexican adventure / fantasy / horror....
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El matrimonio es como el demonio
The story of a Playboy bachelor who does not know the good that is, until he is married. Slowly, the...
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El día de la boda
The love affairs of two couples, modern parents a couple of troubled teens....
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Operación carambola
Two clumsy and absent-minded spies (Capulina and Chespirito) are hired to save the world from a nucl...
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El puma
Son of a ranching family returns home after studying in the city for a law degree. He sides with the...
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La casta divina
Chronicle Caste War in Yucatan held in the nineteenth century, where the land and the people were th...
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The Three Perfect Married
Three married couples gather to celebrate the eighteenth anniversary of their marriage mourning the ...
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Stranger in the House
An American serial killer, known for his handiwork with a straight razor, manages to escape while be...
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Yo el ejecutor
A retired mercenary known as 'The Executioner', is forced to take one more case especially when his ...
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¡Que seas feliz!
Career criminal hooks up with famous singer because she looks like a long-term meal ticket....
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La banda de la sotana negra
Three punk cholos in Tijuana steal cassocks from a church so they can do crimes better....
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La disputa
The wife of a philandering husband tries to engineer a situation in which she can photograph him in ...
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Peluquero de señoras
Beauty-products czar can't attend an important industry function, so he hires a look-alike as a stan...
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Juana Gallo
Peasant woman leads a regiment during the final days of the Mexican Revolution. Also, romantic entan...
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La cuna vacía
Male half of a young couple gets distracted from his family duties and considers abandoning his wife...
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Brood of Vipers
Two cousins have always been rivals in everything, and to top it all off, they fall in love with t...
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Siempre en domingo
Behind the scenes at a popular TV variety show, highly fictionalized....
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Night Dance Hall
Martine is a young woman plagued both by poverty and by uncaring, problem parents who in no way can ...
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The Children of Sanchez
Hall Bartlett directs the rural drama The Children of Sanchez, based on the tome The Children of San...
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Savage Summer
After a romantic betrayal, young Cecilia decides to sleep around with the men she grew up with....
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La faraona
Pastora Heredia is a beautiful gypsy with great character who always tries to help the needy. One da...
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El calvario de una esposa
Confederate Col. Lafe Harvey (Earl Ross) travels home after the Civil War, where he must tell his ni...
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La vorágine: abismos de amor
It narrates the adventures of the poet Arturo Cova and his lover Alicia, a story of passion and reve...
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El príncipe del desierto
A girl meets a young boy in Arabia who falls in love with her. When they grow up, he goes to Mexico ...
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