Estudios San Miguel (San Miguel Studios) was an Argentine film studio that was active in the 1940s and early 1950s. It flourished during the golden age of Cinema of Argentina, and at its peak was one of the major studios in Buenos Aires. Genres ranged from musical comedy to costume drama and gaucho thriller. Films included La guerra gaucha (The Gaucho War 1942), co-produced with Artistas Argentinos Asociados, and the comedy Juvenilia (1943), both of which won several major awards. Eva Duarte, soon to become the first lady of Argentina as Eva Perón, appeared in two of the studio's films in 1945. The studio became overextended financially and ceased production after 1952.
Estudios San Miguel was founded and owned by Miguel Machinandiarena (1899–1975).[1] Machinandiarena was a Basque from Navarre who had emigrated to Argentina in 1915.[2] His family was very wealthy, had large real estate investments and controlled the Casino de Mar del Plata.[3] Miguel Machinandiarena founded the company in 1937 with his brothers Narciso and Silvestre and began to build the studios and laboratories in the town of Bella Vista.[4]
The studio absorbed SIDE (Sociedad Impresora de Discos Electrofónicos), which had pioneered the tango format with a trilogy of films, but failed to establish a solid business model.[5] In 1940 Estudios San Miguel launched its first production, Petróleo, directed by Arturo S. Mom.[6] Machinandiarena was one of the great promoters of the Argentine film industry.[7] For a while the studio was one of the largest Argentine film companies.[8]
The Italian director Catrano Catrani, who emigrated to Argentina in 1937, became artistic director of the studio.[9] He and other directors at the studio were assisted by Catrani's wife, Vlasta Lah, who later directed Las furias (1960) and Las modelos (1963).[10] The set designer and later director Ralph Pappier designed the sets of La guerra gaucha (1942), En el viejo Buenos Aires (1942) and Madame Bovary (1947). In 1944 Pappier created the first special effects department for the studio. Pappier and Homero Manzi made Pobre, me madre querida in 1948.[11] The Peruvian poet and author César Miró was a technical adviser at the studio from 1944 to 1953, when he moved to Paramount Pictures in Hollywood.[12]
La guerra gaucha (1942) was an adaptation of a novel by Miguel de Unamuno.[16] The partners at Artistas Argentinos Asociados decided to make the film with their own funds. These proved insufficient and they had to partner with San Miguel Studios and undersell the exhibition rights for the movie earlier in some areas. These decisions allowed them to make the film with "a little less belt-tightening but without splurging".[17] The film was shot almost entirely within the Estudios San Miguel apart from two scenes in the Tigre delta in the Río de la Plata.[16] The film won three Silver Condor awards, including Best Film,[18]Best Director (Lucas Demare),[19] and Best Adapted Screenplay (Ulyses Petit de Murat and Homero Manzior).[19]
The 1945 musical La cabalgata del circo (The Circus Cavalcade) was a vehicle for the female star of the moment, Libertad Lamarque. Due to her performance, the film drew huge audiences. The film also included Eva Duarte, soon to become Eva Perón as wife of the president of Argentina, in a minor role.[23] Eva would arrive late at the studio, and would interrupt the shooting any time she was wanted on the phone, without the director daring to complain.[24] However, Eva's participation made it possible for Machinandiarena to obtain celluloid from the military government's Ministry of Communications.[23] Later in 1945 María Eva Duarte starred in La Pródiga (The Prodigal). On 3 August 1946 Machinandiarena signed over all rights to this film to the president's wife.[25]
In 1945 the studio produced La dama duende (The Phantom Lady), produced by Machinandiarena and directed by Luis Saslavsky, based on a 17th-century cloak-and-dagger comedy by Pedro Calderón de la Barca. The director and the leading lady, Delia Garcés, were Argentine. Otherwise the film was made by Spanish Republican refugees, including the script, decor, cinematography and principal actors.[26]
Ricagno, Alejandro; Bence, Amelia (2001). "toda una mujer / une vraie femme". Cinémas d'Amérique Latine (in Spanish). Presses Universitaires du Midi (9). JSTOR42598768.
Alejandro Rodríguez Álvarez, known as Alejandro Casona was a Spanish poet and playwright born in Besullo, Spain, a member of the Generation of '27. Casona received his bachelor's degree in Gijon and later studied at the University of Murcia. After Franco's rise in 1936, he was forced, like many Spanish intellectuals, to leave Spain. He lived in Buenos Aires, Argentina until April 1962, when he definitively returned to Spain.
Amelia Bence was an Argentine film actress and one of the divas of the Golden Age of Argentine Cinema (1940–1960).
Mecha Ortiz was a classic Argentine actress who appeared in films between 1937 and 1981, during the Golden Age of Argentine Cinema. At the 1944 Argentine Film Critics Association Awards, Ortiz won the Silver Condor Award for Best Actress for her performance in Safo, historia de una pasión (1943), and won it again in 1946 for her performance in El canto del cisne (1945). She was known as the Argentine Greta Garbo and for playing mysterious characters, who suffered by past misfortunes in love, mental disorders, or forbidden love. Safo, historia de una pasión was the first erotic Argentine film, though there was no nudity. She also played in the first film in which a woman struck a man and the first film with a lesbian romance. In 1981, she was awarded the Grand Prize for actresses from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Delia Amadora García Gerboles better known as Delia Garcés was an Argentine film actress of the Golden Age of Argentine Cinema (1940–1960). She made almost 30 appearances in film between 1937 and 1959 and acted on stage from 1936 to 1966. She won the Premios Sur Best Actress award three times from the Argentine Academy of Cinematography Arts and Sciences, as well as the Argentine Film Critics Association's Silver Condor Award for Best Actress, the Premios Leopold Torre Nilsson, Premio Pablo Podestá, and the inaugural ACE Platinum Lifetime Achievement Award from the Asociación de Cronistas del Espectáculo.
The Soul of the Accordion is a 1935 Argentine tango musical film directed by Mario Soffici and written by José A. Bugliot. It is considered one of the earliest classics of Argentine cinema.
Carlos Francisco Borcosque Sánchez was a Chilean film director and screenwriter involved in the production of the Cinema of Argentina.
Laura Ana "Tita" Merello was an Argentine film actress, tango dancer and singer of the Golden Age of Argentine Cinema (1940–1960). In her six decades in Argentine entertainment, at the time of her death, she had filmed over thirty movies, premiered twenty plays, had nine television appearances, completed three radio series and had had countless appearances in print media. She was one of the singers who emerged in the 1920s along with Azucena Maizani, Libertad Lamarque, Ada Falcón, and Rosita Quiroga, who created the female voices of tango. She was primarily remembered for the songs "Se dice de mí" and "La milonga y yo".
The Gaucho War is a 1942 Argentine historical drama and epic film directed by Lucas Demare and starring Enrique Muiño, Francisco Petrone, Ángel Magaña, and Amelia Bence. The film's script, written by Homero Manzi and Ulyses Petit de Murat, is based on the novel by Leopoldo Lugones published in 1905. The film premiered in Buenos Aires on November 20, 1942 and is considered by critics of Argentine cinema to be one of the most successful films in history. It won three Silver Condor awards, including Best Film, Best Director, and Best Adapted Screenplay, given by the Argentine Film Critics Association at the 1943 Argentine Film Critics Association Awards for the best films and performances of the previous year.
El Caradura y la millonaria, also known as No estoy enamorada de tí, pero te quiero. is a 1971 Argentine comedy film directed by Enrique Cahen Salaberry. It was one of several films by Cahen Salaberry after his return from Spain to Argentine cinema in the 1960s. The screenplay was written by Luis Cesar Amadori and Antonio Botta. It is a remake of the 1938 film El canillita y la dama. The film premiered on 6 March 1971, and starred Juan Carlos Altavista and María Vaner, with Vaner performing her own songs.
Los golpes bajos is a 1974 Argentine film directed by Mario Sábato. It is a film about boxing, inspired by José María Gatica. Shot in Eastmancolor, Sabato wrote the script in collaboration with Mario Mactas. The film stars Aldo Barbero, Héctor Alterio, Walter Vidarte and Ana María Picchio.
Zulema Esther González Borbón, better known as Zully Moreno, was an Argentine film actress of the Golden Age of Argentine Cinema (1940–1960). She appeared in more than 70 movies, earning best actress awards from the Argentine Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the Spanish Cinema Writers Circle.
Alita Blanca Barchigia, better known as Alita Román, was an Argentine film actress of the Golden Age of Argentine Cinema (1940–1960).
Lumiton is a former film production company and current museum located in Munro, Buenos Aires, Argentina. Lumiton Studios was founded in 1932 at the start of the golden age of film in that country. Its lowbrow, populist films appealed to local audiences and were highly successful in Argentina and throughout Latin America. It was the main competitor to Argentina Sono Film in the 1940s.
Omar Acha is an Argentine historian and political essayist. He is a researcher at the Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas and also at the Centro de Investigaciones Filosóficas (Argentina). He teaches Philosophy of History at the Universidad de Buenos Aires. He was also a member of the editorial board of Herramienta. Revista de Teoría y Crítica Marxista, published in Buenos Aires.
Amanda Varela was an Argentine actress who primarily worked during the Golden Age of Argentine Cinema, performing on stage and in films of Argentina and the US. She made 9 films in Argentina and 2 in the US and appeared on stage in numerous productions in both countries. Varela is usually credited with helping her sister, Mecha Ortiz, secure her first acting roles. In the 1950s, Varela retired from acting, moved to the United States, and became a matrimonial judge.
María Constanza Ceruti is an anthropologist and mountaineer from Argentina, who has done more than 80 field surveys, most of them as part of National Geographic teams in Andean regions of Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru. Her most important finding are the Children of Llullaillaco, considered the best preserved mummies in the world by the Guinness World Records. She is also the first woman worldwide to specialize in high-altitude archaeology, studying Inca ceremonial centers on the summits of Andean peaks above 6000 meters. She is a pioneer in the anthropological study of sacred mountains around the world, and in the emerging field of glacial archaeology.
Hilda María Herzer was an Argentine sociologist, environmentalist and professor. She was a researcher with FLACSO, and visiting professor at Universidad Nacional del Litoral.
Mario David was an Argentine film director and screenwriter. He directed and wrote 12 films between 1971 and 1996.
Mirta Zaida Lobato is an Argentine historian, essayist, and full professor specializing in the social, cultural and political history of the world of work and gender relations in Argentina and Latin America in the 20th century. Lobato was the founder of "Área Interdisciplinaria de Estudios de la Mujer" (AIEM). She was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2006.
Vlasta Giulia Lah Rocchi, known professionally as Vlasta Lah, was the first woman director of sound films in Argentine cinema, as well as the only woman filmmaker in Latin America in the 1960s. Before her, the only women filmmakers in the country worked during the silent era in the 1910s and early 1920s, before the industrial development of Argentine cinema.
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