02 · 08 · 21

Carlos López Moctezuma: The Art of the Perverse

Rafael Aviña

Corre el año de 1949, la industria fílmica mexicana se encuentra en un punto álgido con una producción ascendente y múltiples publicaciones, noticieros cinematográficos y programas de radio que promueven esa bonanza y sus creadores. En ese contexto, la revista Cinema Reporter publica en su número 553 un amplio reportaje dedicado al exitoso actor Carlos López Moctezuma Pineda, en la que se afirma: "Durante once años Carlos López Moctezuma ha hecho los más interesantes ‘malditos’ del cine nacional. La cuestión es ésta: ¿Cómo puede provocar tanta aversión una persona desde la pantalla?"…

Alongside some important parts in foreign films shot in Mexico like Los orgulloos (The Proud and the Beautiful, Yves Allegret and Rafael Portas, 1953) with Michele Morgan and Gérard Philipe – in which his wife Josefina Escobedo also starred – and Viva Maria! (1965, dir. Louis Malle) with Jeanne Moreau and Brigitte Bargot, López Moctezuma also played a few good men: such as in Padre nuestro (Our Father, Emilio Gómez Muriel, 1953), where his character is concerned about the moral collapse of his children.

In Campeón sin corona (Champion Without a Crown, Alejandro Galindo, 1945), he played Tio Rosas, manager of the surly boxer Roberto “Kid” Terrranova, played by David Silva. Later, in Felicidad (1956, dir. Alfonso Corona Blake), based on a play by Emilio Carballido, he played a sad, aging teacher, married with children, who manages to enamour a young Ministry of Finance employee (Gloria Lozano), awakening within himself desires that he had previously thought lost. Here, López Moctezuma is a naïve but noble bureaucrat, who in the months prior to his retirement finds himself at a moral crossroads that destroys both his life and those of the people around him. It is one of his greatest big-screen roles.