Roberto Galvadon's 1959 rags-to-riches fable combines magical realism and folkloric elements of Mexico's Indianist movement with results that are alternately comic and poignant.

The legend has been transformed by two gifted Mexicans, Director Roberto Gavaldon and Cameraman Gabriel Figueroa, into a fragile but profound little picture that abounds and delights in the black-and-white magic of the magic lantern.

The charm of it is in the felicity with which it flows from a solemn, sad account of misery and futility into a bubbling comedy, spiced with morbid witticisms, and then into a drollish horror tale.

It is a very moving fantasy drama by Gavaldón, which often benefits from a memorable performance by Ignacio López Tarso to interrogate, with a certain magical realism, the socio-economic condition of the Mexican peasantry [Full review in Spanish]