Juan Garcia Esquivel   “Cabaret Tragico”   RCA Victor Mexico. (1957)   The soundtrack from a Mexican crime drama—his second to last release before heading north to the States. Vocals on five of the tracks by Columba Domínguez, Elsa Cárdenas, Carmen di Lirio, and Kitty de Hoyos.

One of the last and the best of those infamous mexican nightclub melodramas (“Películas de Cabareteras”), it features a stunning noirish cinematography, over-the-top acting by half a dozen of wonderfully weird and wicked latina beauties such as Columba Dominguez and Kitty de Hoyos (looking like a drag queen performing Marilyn Monroe!) plus great -if low budget- musical show clips performed by the mesmerizing Esquivel, the “King of Zu-Zu-Zu”! Another masterpiece from the great (beer-drinking?) director Alfonso “Corona” Blake, who began as an assistant to Luis Bunuel and Emilio “Indio” Fernandez and gave the world some of the finest campy horror- and “Il Santo”-classics.

(72 votes, average: 4.19 out of 5)

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