User reviews

In the 50's, in Mexico, Archibaldo de la Cruz (Ernesto Alonso) comes to a judge to confess crimes of his own. He tells his life since he was a spoiled boy, in the days of the Mexican revolution, when he won a music box from his mother and developed a bizarre desire of killing women, becoming a serial killer. In the end, this movie is a psychological dark comedy of the Mexican phase of Buñuel. I have just had the chance to see this film on DVD, recently released by the best Brazilian distributor (Versátil), and I found it another excellent work of Buñuel, one of my favorite directors ever. The story is very ironic and unpredictable, and I totally disagree with the User Comments `Minor Buñuel' indicated for this film. My vote is nine.

Title (Brazil): `Ensaio de um Crime' (`Rehearsal for a Crime')

I have often cited this as my favourite Bunuel film and one of my favourite films of all. Watching it again after a period of some years, I am surprised that it seems so light and amusing instead of dark and dangerous. I suppose this is partly because when first seen the misogyny, the gleefulness at the prospect of killing a woman, is so shocking, that we notice less the playfulness. Whereas on a subsequent viewing we are less affected, having some idea how things pan out. Is this the only Bunuel film with a seemingly happy ending? There are still, of course, many shocking moments, like the bloody/sexy death of the woman looking after him as a child, the whole business concerning the mannequins (that seems burned in my memory for ever) and the most surprising early death of the nun/nurse. Maybe it's partly that when I watched this in my youth I rightly saw it as stunningly original and displaying conduct contrary to that shown elsewhere, whereas now the old cynic in me has been exposed to much more and is smiling throughout with barely a pause for a gasp. Always going to be fun to watch though.

Perhaps my favorite of Buñuel's Mexican years. As a child, Archibaldo de la Cruz willed the death of his young, sexy nanny through the device of a magical music box. As an adult, he finds this box at a pawn shop, and it awakens the exciting feelings he had as he stood over the corpse of his nanny checking out her exposed thigh. He decides to become a serial killer, but it never quite works out that way. Every person he sets out to kill ends up being murdered by another's hand. Actually, I shouldn't say "person," as Archibaldo's violent emotions only arise towards women. There is some heavy Catholic symbology to the picture, and the violence towards women obviously arises from the twisted mores of Catholicism. His first intended victim as an adult, for example, is a brazen tramp who openly expresses her wish to seduce him to get back at her husband. Buñuel had perhaps the most impeccable sense for creating finales, and the one here is as odd and remarkable as any other. Watch the two actions Archibaldo performs with his cane. I'm not 100% sure what they signify, but I know that must be of the utmost importance. Ensayo de un crimen should be watched back to back with Buñuel's 1953 film, Él, also about a man being driven insane over his wife because of his strict religious beliefs. 10/10.

I don't understand why some reviewers call "Criminal Life of Archibaldo De La Cruz" (1955) - "minor" Bunuel. The only "minor" about this (and many his films) is its running time, only 89 minutes but all his films are enigmatic, odd, charming, and always brilliant. I consider Bunuel one of the best and original filmmakers ever and nothing he had done is minor for me.

"Criminal Life of Archibaldo De La Cruz is B/W comedy of Don Luis' Mexican period which is surreal, disturbing, erotic and funny satire about a perverted young wealthy man, an amateur sculptor. Since he was a boy, and one evening witnessed the sudden death of his young attractive governess and became sexually exited by it, Archibaldo De La Cruz dreams of committing a perfect crime of an attractive woman to recreate the feeling but something always prevents him from fulfilling his dreams. It does not mean that the deaths would not occur -it is just that Archibaldo can't take a credit for them. As he often did with his even unlikable and perverse characters, Bunuel gives some of his own sexual fantasies, fetishes, and dreams that he freely admits to Archibaldo thus making him more human and sympathetic.

Handsome and well-heeled Archibaldo has been convinced from boyhood that he possesses a music box that has the power to kill. He embarks upon a career as a serial murderer in which his intended victims are ravishing looking females but Fate continually thwarts his lethal intentions and his murders never get past the fantasy stage.

The most notorious scene in the film and one of which only this director is capable, is where Archibaldo consigns to the flames of a kiln a wax model of one of his potential victims who has slipped through his grasp. This macabre episode has acquired a tragically ironic overtone as the woman who has modelled for the dummy is played by Miroslava Stern who was cremated shortly after filming completed, having taken her own life. Bunuel was of course to employ a 'prosthetic limb' to great effect in 'Tristana'.

Working within the budgetary limitations of Mexican cinema, director Luis Bunuel has fashioned a stylish, sophisticated and technically polished piece that contains some delicious performances and bizarre Bunuelian moments that linger long in the memory.

Although condemned by circumstances to being innocent of murder Archibaldo still feels the need to 'confess' to the police. He is politely dismissed by a detective with the words:"thinking about murdering someone does not constitute a crime." This will strike a chord with most of us I am sure!

Again, Bunuel explores the disturbing mentality of a member of the privileged class. The premise is very amusing: a would-be serial killer whose attempts are constantly thwarted by circumstance. The film has some wonderful touches like the demented music box theme, the fantasies when Archie gets in one of his murderous moods, and again a focus on the lower half of the female form. Ernesto Alonso and the entire cast are terrific. However, the film does have a certain sluggishness to it, and the first two acts in particular seem to contain a lot of superfluous material that doesn't add much to the whole. I also feel the ending could use more of a cynical bite to it. Still, it's better than a lot of his 50's work, if not quite as remarkable as EL or LOS OLVIDADOS.

The delirious journey of a mental disordered man (Archibaldo de la Cruz) , who is obsessed in making the perfect crime. As boy, Archibaldo witnesses his governess' death and is fascinated by what he feels . As a man he's obsessed with murder and dying . Undoubtedly, death encircles the always obsessed Archibaldo, and the targets are ordinarily unfortunate women (Miroslava who subsequenly committed suicide , Rita Macedo, Ariadna Welter).

A bitter and attractive diatribe about a boy who seeing the death of his governess has a lasting effect on his adult life , as he grows up to be a demented cretin -well played by Ernesto Alonso- whose failure with women leads him to conspire to kill every one he meets , a task at which he also fails . Buñuel marshals all of his characteristic amoral wit in this story of a would-be murderer at every turn in his efforts to get his kicks from a unsuccessful sex murder . This is an enjoyable but minor psychological drama from Buñuel in Spanish with English subtitles , dealing with a strange and powerful obsession stemming from a pampered childhood . As usual, the Spaniard master schews the visual fussiness of style , opting for the straightforward camera set-up at all times. The use of props like the toy music box from his infancy which triggers off Archibaldo's lust and the wax dummy burned one of his attempts is thwarted , is all the more hilarious and surprising as a result .

This agreeable motion picture was produced in short budget by Roberto Figueroa and Alfonso Patiño Gómez ; being compellingly directed by Luis Buñuel who was voted the 14th Greatest Director of all time . This Buñuel's peculiar film belongs to his Mexican period ; in fact , it's plenty of known Mexican actors . Born in Calanda , Aragon (1900) , Buñuel then moved to Madrid to study at the university there, where his close friends included Salvador Dalí and Federico García Lorca . After moving to Paris , at the beginning Buñuel did a variety of film-related odd jobs , including working as an assistant to director Jean Epstein . With financial help from his mother and creative assistance of the surrealist Dalí, he made his first film , a 17-minute short titled "Un Chien Andalou" (1929), and immediately catapulted himself into film history thanks to its disturbing images and abstract plot . The following year , sponsored by wealthy art patrons, he made his first picture , the scabrous witty and violent "Age of Gold" (1930), which mercilessly attacked the church and the middle classes, themes that would preoccupy Buñuel for the rest of his career . That career, though, seemed almost over by the mid-1930s, as he found work increasingly hard to come by and in the pre-Spanish Civil War , he made the documentary ¨Las Hurdes¨(1933) , the Luis emigrated to the US where he worked for the Museum of Modern Art and as a film dubber for Warner Bros . He subsequently started his Mexican period and he teamed up with producer Óscar Dancigers and after a couple of unmemorable efforts shot back to international attention with the lacerating study of Mexican street urchins in ¨Los Olvidados¨ (1950), winning him the Best Director award at the Cannes Film Festival. But despite this new-found acclaim, Buñuel spent much of the next decade working on a variety of ultra-low-budget films, few of which made much impact outside Spanish-speaking countries , though many of them are well worth seeking out . As he went on filming "The Great Madcap" , ¨The brute¨, "Wuthering Heights", ¨El¨ , "The Criminal Life of Archibaldo De la Cruz" , ¨Robinson Crusoe¨ , ¨Death in the garden¨ and many others . Rating "Criminal life of Archibaldo de la Cruz" : 6.5/10 , decent movie , but much too talky , it sounds far more interesting than it plays.

You can go through Ensayo de un crimen looking for symbolism and satirical details about bourgeois life. Ok but the movie itself is not really gripping.

Worst of all the narration is poorly handled. The smooth Buñuel style only works when the script is witty enough to keep you brisk with every single line and every single move. Example: El Angel exterminador (1962) keeps you awake, caring for a dozen characters and not having time to think it over.

The criminal life of Archibald de la Cruz can be divided in three parts depicting three criminal cases told by Archibald himself. The way they are interlaced does not help to keep a strong interest in the 'hero'. Everything is quite monotonous. It's Archibald's life ? Then why tell his life? Mixing scarce manic criminal attitudes with the life of a dull dandy does not make a tasty cocktail. Él (1952) had already the same narrative weakness but there were two main characters. Here nothing really goes on the side of fantasy and the settings are not great.

Personally I made do with the ideas/images Hitchcock might have taken from this fellow jesuit-ed schoolboy.

I disagree with another reviewer who said this movie is not interesting to watch. I've seen Los Olivados, El Angel Exterminador, L'Age D'Or and Un Chien Andalou and i thought Archibaldo matched up well alongside them. I found it both interesting/sensual/compelling and with interesting meaning.

"The Criminal Life of Archibaldo de la Cruz" begins with a childhood memory of Archibaldo's governess making up a myth about Archibaldo's new music box, to distract him from misbehaving: "The King compelled (his Queen) to look at him, but she lowered her eyes, and the King took it as a sign of guilt. Without a second thought he opened up the little music box and immediately the queen was struck dead." As she is telling this story, and gets to the part of the Queen looking down, Archibaldo's governess looks down. Once she finishes, she hears gunfire outside (there is a revolution going on), and goes to the window to look at it. Archibaldo immediately desires to open the music box, with his governess in mind, and at that same moment a stray bullet from the fighting in the street breaks through the window and kills the governess.

We cut to Archibaldo telling this story to a Nun, who dismisses his childhood memory, "I think you like to pass yourself off as being wicked." She leaves the room, and Archibaldo retrieves a flick-knife from his drawer. When she returns, he is standing by the door.

Archibaldo: You always want to be in the good graces of god? Well, then, wouldn't you be glad to die since it means eternal bliss? Nun: Of course... but why? Archibaldo: (pause) I'll give you that joy.

Archibaldo de la Cruz is a fascinating look into the meaning of the label "criminal." I believe you need to go into a Bunuel movie not having heard too much about it, to get full enjoyment out of it, so i won't say anything else, just commend it to you. If you've never seen a Bunuel movie, i would start with El Angel Exterminador, then you'll be hooked and won't be able to keep from checking this and others out.

Following your advice, I recently `relented' to buying from Alapage the two Luis Bunuel Double-Feature discs released in France by Film Sans Frontieres. After watching them in their entirety, I cannot believe that I, who consider Bunuel my all-time favorite director and one of the true masters of the medium, have waited this long to acquire these DVDs. Actually while Alapage listed these DVDs at EUR25.73 on their site, they only cost me EUR21.51 each (excluding EUR12 shipping charges). So, if there is still anybody who has not purchased them yet, now may be the time to do so!

Since I had never watched EL (1952) before, it was the first one to go through my DVD player. It was a chilling parable of an insanely jealous middle-aged man played with acute intensity by Arturo De Cordova. It afforded Bunuel ample opportunity to make practical use of overt Freudian symbolism without lending the film a heavy-handed air of pretentiousness. While there are some critics who consider it as merely `an engaging, minor work', I regard it as being among Bunuel's finest; arguably, with this film, Bunuel reached the culmination of his work in Mexico, but it also looks forward to similar sequences and themes he would tackle later on in his career, especially TRISTANA (1970) and, his last film, THAT OBSCURE OBJECT OF DESIRE (1977).

EL was beautifully abetted by another of his low-budget Mexican films, the great black comedy THE CRIMINAL LIFE OF ARCHIBALDO DE LA CRUZ (1955). Again, critical reception was a bit muted in some circles, dismissing it as `just a throwaway oddity' typical of Bunuel's films of the period. However, it is much more than that: it is certainly very funny if you can accept its macabre sense of humor. It allowed Bunuel to create some of the most memorable images in all of his films, especially the celebrated dummy incineration scene, which could have been "inspired" by a similar scene in Michael Curtiz's marvelous MYSTERY OF THE WAX MUSEUM (1933) which Bunuel must have seen while working at Warner Bros. in the Thirties. A similar instance of this eclectic approach on Bunuel's part can be found in the "walking hand" sequence in his THE EXTERMINATING ANGEL (1962) - one of my favorite Bunuels - which harks back to an identical premise in Robert Florey's THE BEAST WITH FIVE FINGERS (1946), another Warner Bros. horror melodrama. For me, one of the enduring assets of THE CRIMINAL LIFE OF ARCHIBALDO DE LA CRUZ is the charm and great beauty that was Miroslava Stern (who played the part of Lavinia and was the model for the ill-fated dummy). Tragically, she would take her own life a mere two weeks after the film's release with her body, ironically enough, ending up cremated!

Both the print utilized and the transfer for both films were adequate enough, and perfectly acceptable under the circumstances. However, EL's overall visual and aural qualities where distinctly superior to those of ARCHIBALDO which suffered from excessive specks and slight audio dropouts at times, but were never so alarming as to dispel from one's viewing pleasure of the film.

Yet another perfectly constructed story by Buñuel, but this time the pace of the film just doesn't feel right. As a viewer i usually have found myself trapped between the unceasing spanish dialogues. The portray of a mentally ill killer should've been more distant from the common reality, if not within the dialogues, then through the usage of scenery and theatrical production, which in this case was monotone and non-corresponding to a thrilling-tempting view

Adapted from a mediocre novel by Mexican playwright Rodolfo Usigli (gladly the only one he wrote) "Ensayo de un Crimen" gathers several of the worst cinematographic moments issued from such an uneven filmmaker as Luis Buñuel. Its many clumsy aspects are generously distributed on all areas of its making: there is not a single actor that can deliver his/her lines without sounding like your average end-of-semester College play. The scenery and decor are elementary and full of anachronisms. To mention just one, in the initial flashback Archibaldo (as a young child) is playing in the 20's with a Lionel train from the 40-50's! Buñuel's directing job is plainly bad, even if he tries to embellish it with a couple of his famous "oniric" sequences that just don't work here.

Maybe the worst part of all is the script. There's not a single line that doesn't sound corny and forced. Here's to those who watched the film with the benefit of translated subtitles or dubbed into a foreign language: I envy you. In Spanish, the dialogs are plainly awful.

However, the most remarkable feature is the enormous amount of praise this unholy stinker has received during its 50 years of existence! Undoubtedly this shows that to most moviegoers and critics -moviegoers of the Summa cum Laude species, I guess- suppose that the sole name of a famous filmmaker must mean you're watching a work of art.

To this I must add that practically none of the movies that Buñuel filmed during his stay in Mexico is a true masterpiece. Even the celebrated "Los Olvidados" is sadly marred by an unabashed pamphlet scene extolling the social merits of the Juvenile Delinquent re-adaptation centers issued from the government of President Cárdenas. Maybe Buñuel considered necessary giving a little lick to the hand that was feeding him at the moment...

Criminal Life of Archibaldo de la Cruz, The (1955)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Luis Bunuel film that sounds more interesting than it turns out to be. As a young child, Archibaldo is told of a magical magic box that when turned on will kill. As an adult, Archibaldo comes across this box again and this times plans to use it to help him become a serial killer. There's a lot of black humor scattered throughout the film but very little of it made me laugh. The opening segments bashing the rich were funny but the film slowly falls apart in the middle and never regains any speed. The story is a very good one but the director does very little with it, which is a shame because this should have been a whole lot better.