GROWING UP IN the United States during the 1950s and '60s, the comic actors I loved were Dick Van Dyke, Danny Kaye, Peter Sellers, Jack Lemmon, Jerry Lewis. …
And, thanks to my love for older movies, Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, Laurel & Hardy, the Marx Brothers, Abbott & Costello. …
But if you grew up South of the Border during that same period, the No. 1 comic movie star was Cantinflas, often dubbed the Charlie Chaplin of Mexico.
My first exposure to Cantinflas came in 1956 when I was 8 and my parents took me to see "Around the World in Eighty Days."
Co-starring with David Niven in this epic version of Jules Verne's novel, Cantinflas handily stole the show as Passepartout, valet to Niven's stiff-upper-lip Phileas Fogg. Quite an accomplishment, considering the remarkable roster of cameos by A-list movie stars.
I was quite taken with Cantinflas, as were many Americans who saw him for the first time. He was hilarious, and a wonderful conduit for the audience, since Niven's character was so aloof.
A few years later a Hollywood movie called "Pepe" was built around Cantinflas, a misguided effort to bring him to American audiences via another star-laden extravaganza. But this time it was a misfire. (Although, considering all the bit movie stars on hand, it's surprising that it's never been released on American DVD.)
Too bad he didn't get another shot at U.S. audiences with better material. Not that it mattered to him … or his core fans. Cantinflas was beloved by Latin America and remained a huge star in Mexico into the early 1980s.
If you've never had the opportunity to see him in his element, Sony has released a batch of Cantinflas comedies with English subtitles, and they are most enjoyable, offering insight into both the talent and appeal of his screen character, as well as a view of a comic culture with which most of us are unfamiliar.
"Cantinflas" was a stage name for Mario Moreno, much as "The Little Tramp" was the Charlie Chaplin persona. His character also resembled Chaplin in his vagabond dress, a disheveled look accentuated by drooping trousers barely held up with a rope belt, a long-sleeved T-shirt, a raggedy scarf and a rumpled hat. He also wore a light beard and a slight mustache on the corners of his mouth.
Unlike Chaplin, however, Cantinflas was not primarily a slapstick comedian, although he was a talented physical comic, performing pratfalls and sight gags in the universal tradition (in one film, he throws a pie in the face of a startled woman.)
But most of his comedy derives from his signature gag — exaggerated monologues, during which he uses doubletalk to confuse the person he is addressing with rapid-fire patter, circling logic, and stops and starts as he tries to make a point or get out of a dicey situation with an authority figure.
Cantinflas also resembles Chaplin with his slightly arrogant attitude, the aggressive manner in which he turns situations to his advantage or exacts some form of comic revenge. (There's also a bit of what we might consider meanness in some of his actions, the same way that Asian comedy can sometimes seem rather harsh to U.S. audiences.)
The new DVDs, all released individually on the Columbia label, are black-and-white comedies from the early 1940s through the late 1960s, and all are delightfully funny demonstrations of Cantinflas' talent. Each is priced at $14.94 but can easily be found for $10 or less. (Curiously, Columbia also owns "Pepe," which might have been good to include in this wave of releases.)
Included are "El Gendarme Desconocido (The Undercover Policeman)," with Cantinflas inadvertently capturing bank robbers, being given a position with the police force and going undercover to foil a diamond heist; "Los Tres Mosqueteros (The Three Musketeers)," in which he makes a shambles of a movie studio that is shooting the title picture and then dreams he is D'Artagnan; "El Circo (The Circus)," an obvious homage to Chaplin's silent film of the same title, with Cantinflas a circus handyman who becomes an unlikely trapeze star.
"A Volar Joven" has Cantinflas playing an air force cadet forced to marry a plain woman who, naturally, blossoms in the end; "El Mago ("The Magician)" is a showcase for his comic prowess as he goes from the streets of Mexico to the palaces of the Far East, performing magic and taking on various character parts; "Si Yo Fuera Diputado" has Cantinflas as a barber studying law, eventually standing up to political corruption; and "El Senor Fotografo (Mr. Photographer)," in which he is captured by bad guys who mistake him for a scientist's assistant with access to an atomic bomb formula.
Highlights include a hilarious dance at the beginning of "Musketeers" and the trapeze work in "The Circus" — but each film has funny bits of business, and Cantinflas proves to be a most endearing character for all audiences, whatever their ethnicity.
e-mail: hicks@desnews.com