Miguel Contreras Torres
Miguel Contreras Torres ( born September 28, 1899 in Morelia, † June 5, 1981 in Mexico City) was a Mexican film director, film producer, screenwriter and actor. Prior to his career in the Mexican film industry, he was an officer of the rebels in the Mexican Revolution. He is the only director of the early Mexican film, which managed the transition from silent to sound film without problems. He reached into his films on topics also not previously treated, and thus had a leading role in.
Life and work
Miguel Contreras Torres fought in the Mexican Revolution on the side of the rebels and had held the position of an officer. After the end of the civil war he started at the beginning of the 1920s his career in the Mexican film industry. He made his debut in 1920 as an actor in the film El Zarco by José Manuel Ramos. For his performance Contreras Torres was compared to William S. Hart, a star of the Hollywood Western. A short time later, he began to produce films and directing. So turned Miguel Contreras Torres 1922 De Raza Azteca. Then he turned to the two films El Caporal and El Sueño del Caporal regional issues. In them, he took up the life in northern Mexico. Also in 1922, turned Contreras Torres El hombre sin patria the first film, which dealt with the Mexican emigration to the United States. As a director, Miguel Contreras Torres turned films of different genres. Almas Tropicales from 1923 and is a love story about the love of a young man whose last shot shows the couple in front of the rising sun. In Oro, sangre y sol from the same year he filmed the life of a famous bullfighter. With Aguiluchos Mexicanos he turned a 1924 melodrama about a mother who takes up the career of her son critical and anxious as a pilot.
Contreras Torres worked not only in Mexico. In 1926 he turned El Relicario in Mexico, Hollywood and Spain. 1927 to 1928 he turned El León de Sierra Morena in Spain. In 1929 he returned to Mexico, where he wrote the screenplays for two films nationalist and this also produced and directed at them. This was to Sonadores de la Gloria and El Àguila y el nopal. 1931 Miguel Contreras Torres turned with Zitan his last silent film. In 1933, his film Juárez y Maximiliano came to the cinema and was the Mexican film with the biggest revenue on opening weekend of the 1930s. The royale theme of this film, he continued in a few more in the coming years. So in La Paloma, La Loca and Emperatriz Caballeria del Imperio. Miguel Contreras Torres turned to the late 1960s films, which he was the longest in the business remaining early Mexican director and had managed the only successful transition from silent to sound film.