Ahí Está el Detalle (1940)

Ahí Está el Detalle (1940) loosely, There's The Rub (except it misses the word play where 'detalle' is also used to mean someone's ‘side-piece’)

I like to not waste words and keep my reviews short, but because Larry Bryant savors them so, I promised I'd give this one just a bit more of that length he enjoys so much.

The script itself is virtually an opera buffa/comedy of manners which includes mistaken identities, the clash between social classes, marital strife, and even murder.

On the high social end, we have:

- Cayetano Lastre (Joaquín Pardavé) a very jealous husband who fakes a trip out of town in order to catch his wife in fraganti.

- Dolores del Paso (Sofía Álvarez) the wife who is being blackmailed by an ex-lover by way of some undated love letter, a secret she desperately wishes to keep from her husband.

- A rabid fox terrier named Bobby who needs to be shot.

- A blackmailing ex-lover named Bobby Lechuga (Antonio Bravo), nicknamed The Fox Terrier.

- A long lost brother who became a vagrant and whose presence is required for the reading of a will.

On the low social end we get:

- A servant named Paz or Pacita (Dolores Camarillo)

- The servant’s very hungry boyfriend, Cantinflas (Mario Moreno) a shiftless vagrant whose identity will get confused for that of the wife’s lover, and who will have to agree to pass himself as the long-lost brother in order not to get shot by the irate husband.

- Clotilde Regalado (Sara García) the unmarried mother of a troupe of the long-lost brother’s 'children' (including short-statured adults and a midget; we never really find out if these are actual children or simply a group of con men,) who doesn’t mind not getting the long-lost brother just as long as she gets someone.

In his late career, Cantinflas would become somewhat preachy, and in most films, his scripts weren't this tight, but here (supposedly based on the real life case of Álvaro Chapa in 1925) it's a delight.

This is not only a really good script, but it also showcases his 'peladito' character the best.

Also named Cantinflas, his character here is virtually a blend of all three Marx Brothers:

He is the same sex and food-starved projection of the Id Harpo is. Constantly eating and drinking and even, Harpo-like, gets to chase a girl around the stage. He even gets to catch her.

He is also the two-bit conman that Chico is. Currently he is in trouble with the law for having stolen a typewriter. When given fine clothes to wear, his first reaction is instead to pawn them for cash.

Additionally, he is a Groucho-like ‘master’ of double talk who uses language (or rather, his lack of command of language) to drive everyone around him to distraction, most specifically his foils.

Cantinflas was never again this anarchic or this good.

I don’t know that there’s an English subtitled version; and the disc I got is missing a scene, though we can easily deduce what happens in the missing portion:

Just as he is being forced to marry the overaged, single mother, he is saved by the last second accusation of having murdered Bobby. The wedding is interrupted, and the whole party is taken to a court of law, whereon, the film continues.

The dialogue is much too florid for some of the players, though some (but not all,) make it work just fine.

The most forced scene is at the court where Cantinflas 'infects' others with his singular manner of speech (language, after all, is a virus.)

Though quite early, this might be Mario Moreno 'Cantinflas' best film and as such, highly recommended.