04 · 03 · 25

MIL CAMINOS TIENE LA MUERTE: Arsenio Campos (1946-2025)

Rafael Aviña

Due to a fortuitous situation, at the beginning of the new millennium I worked once a week in a radio program where the main thing was gossiping about the entertainment business. I was not hired for that, but to talk about films with absolute freedom, or so I was told. The experience was obnoxious and, for mental health reasons, I quit after a month. However, in one of those only four sessions in which I participated, they took actor Arsenio Campos to the booth for an interview. I watched him getting annoyed trying to answer the nonsense and vulgarities he was asked about soap operas and intimate situations. What I did was to interrupt and I started talking about his film career, especially in the seventies.

The hosts could not hide their annoyance; nevertheless, Arsenio completely changed his face and began to talk about filmmakers, plots, fellow actors and the thematic openness of that “new golden age” of Mexican cinema, such as the films of the so-called “Echeverrista cinema”. When the program ended he continued talking to me outside the booth about his film experience, since, he told me, nobody asked him about that in the television or radio programs where he was invited, and for him cinema was undoubtedly an essential learning experience. A couple of days ago, when his death was announced, the majority of the news articles were headlined: “Arsenio Campos dies, actor of Lo que dice el dicho, Corazón salvaje and Soy tu dueña”¹.

Born in Tijuana, Baja California, Arsenio joined the youthful casts of several of the stories of that brand new Mexican cinema whose plots gave priority to the problems, amusements and aspirations of a new generation of young people who were becoming aware of the conflicts of their age: delinquency, drugs, alcohol, go-go music (with all the paraphernalia that this included: miniskirts or Mao neck shirts or shirts with baggy sleeves, flared pants, long hair and sideburns, ostentatious medallions and more), unwanted pregnancies, eroticism, virile friendship, the university experience or the generation gap with their progenitors. All this, within a modern cinema made by young or veteran filmmakers who brought their knowledge in melodramatic stories not exempt of irony and certain social reflection.

At the age of 24 and only in 1970 —the year of the World Cup that was trying to eclipse the still recent acts of repression and student massacre that crowned the events of October 2, 1968—, Arsenio participated in seven films. That is to say, he made his debut in José “El Perro” Estrada's debut film: Para servir a usted, about the misadventures of Armodio Horcasitas (Héctor Suárez in his first starring role) who by chance became a waiter and his obsession to take over the neighborhood lunch counter (in the heart of Coyoacán) in order to marry his girlfriend Norma Lazareno. Arsenio plays one of Armodio's bum friends and does so splendidly alongside Julián Pastor, Sergio Ramos and Eduardo Damel, members of the gang, either as troublemakers at a 15th birthday party, at the lunch counter as a meeting point or playing in the street.

Also in 1970 he appeared in Sin salida, in the collective film Tú, yo, nosotros, La fuerza inútil and Intimidades de una secretaria and played the brother of Angélica María with whom Octavio Galindo is in love as the alter ego of director and screenwriter José Agustín in: Ya sé quién eres (Te he estado observando). And at the same time, he has a small but lucid intervention in Las puertas del paraíso, by debutant Salomón Laiter, with a plot by Elena Garro, as a naïve hippie in a couple with Ofelia Medina.

In 1971 he expanded his roles appearing as the young Mr. Martínez, manager of El Taconazo Popis on 20 de Noviembre Avenue who pursues the beautiful employee played by Ana Martín in Alejandro Galindo's Tacos al carbón, starring Vicente Fernández; and is one of the closest friends of the frustrated José Alonso, castrated as a child by a dog in Jorge Fons' Los cachorros, and repeats in a very similar role with the same José Alonso as a junior architect in Los albañiles (1976), also by Fons.

Arsenio Campos acted in turn in: Las cenizas del diputado, Bloody Marlene, Discotec fin de semana, Las siete Cucas, Durazo, la verdadera historia or Amor que mata, in more than 50 films. However, his only major co-starring role was in Mil caminos tiene la muerte (1976) —followed by Ratas del asfalto (1977)— a popular story of youth violence inspired by the successful plots of motorcycle gang members and the obsession for speed that marked the debut of director Rafael Villaseñor Kuri, starring Ana Martín, Emmanuel Olea and Arsenio himself, winner of the STIC award for best debut film.

Mil caminos tiene la muerte was a sort of Mexican answer to Tom Laughlin's The Born Losers (1967): motorcycle chases, sexual abuse, beatings, drugs and unlimited virile violence in which Arsenio played Perro, Mike’s (Olea) right-hand man, the brutal leader of a gang that bloodily pursues those responsible for the rape and death of his girlfriend (Martín). Arsenio was one of the constant figures of a popular seventies cinema that today is still waiting to be rediscovered. May he rest in peace.

Translated by Adrik Díaz

Translator's notes

1. TN:  Famous mexican soap operas produced by Televisa.