El Comediante (1931) review: A creaky, charming relic of early talkies

If you are looking for a fast-paced thriller, stay far away from this one. El comediante is strictly for the archive diggers, the people who find comfort in the crackle of 1930s audio. If you hate slow, theatrical dramas where people gesture wildly like they are trying to flag down a taxi, you will absolutely despise it. 😅

I stumbled onto this one late on a Tuesday night. It is one of those early Spanish-language talkies made when studios were still figuring out how to put microphones near actors without picking up the sound of everyone's shoes squeaking on the floorboards.

Ernesto Vilches plays the main guy, and honestly, his face is the best part of the whole movie. He has these massive, heavy eyes that look like they have seen about three lifetimes of bad news. Sometimes he just stares off-camera for so long you wonder if he forgot his next line or if he is just thinking about what he wants for lunch. 🍕

The plot is your classic "sad clown" story, where a performer has to make people laugh while his own life is basically falling apart. It is a bit like Love's Carnival in how it handles that heavy, stage-play melodrama, though maybe a bit more dusty in its execution.

The Weird Little Details

There is a scene with María Calvo where the lighting is so dim it looks like they were trying to save money on the electric bill. Her face is completely in shadow for like half her dialogue. I kind of liked it, though. It gave the whole thing this accidental spooky vibe that probably was not intentional.

Then Barry Norton pops up. He has that classic Hollywood face where he looks almost too clean-cut for the dusty rooms he is standing in. Every time he is on screen, the movie suddenly feels like it wants to be a romance, but then it remembers it is supposed to be a tragedy and goes back to being sad.

The camera barely moves. Seriously, I think the cameraman fell asleep at one point because one shot of a table goes on for a solid ten seconds after the actors have already walked out of the frame. It is these little imperfections that make these old movies so fun to watch. You can practically hear the crew sweating behind the lens.

• That one background extra who keeps looking directly at the camera. Yes, we see you buddy.
• The sound of paper rustling that somehow sounds louder than the actual dialogue.
• Ernesto's mustache deserves its own acting credit.

It is definitely not a masterpiece. If you want something with a bit more cinematic energy from that era, you might want to check out Panthea instead. But there is something cozy about how creaky this is.

It just ends. No big flashy climax, just a sudden fade to black that makes you check if your internet cut out. I kind of respect that.